Throughout the week, we have visited the brilliant chinampa farming setup in Mexico, Findhorn ecovillage in Scotland, the Green School in Bali, and the solar tents and desert-turned-food forest in Wadi Rum, Jordan. Along the way, we have learned about a number of sustainable and permaculture practices and how to use natural resources effectively, including aquaponics, solar and wind energy, composting, organic farming, and natural water filtration. We have learned how to think of ecosystems and energy-use as a web, realizing that instead of simply taking from nature, we can live an interconnected and balanced life with our environment.
Today, we looked at how we can capture nature’s natural resources and use it in a way that creates harmonious interconnected webs and creates as little waste as possible. Using the whiteboard, we started with an image of the sun’s energy assisting with plant growth, then the kids all contributed incredibly valuable ideas to our chart:
“We can collect the rainwater for the plants.”
“The water from our baths can water the plants and then we can eat the plants.”
“The plants can be composted.”
The kids really got the concept of closed loop systems and created a beautiful web!