PDC Teacher Training * Spring 2025
Feb 28th - March 2nd * April 4 - 6th * May 2 - 4th • Fridays 4-8pm • Saturdays 10am-5pm • Sundays 10am-5pm
This course is designed for Permaculture Design Course graduates who want to be in a supportive community as they grow into teachers.
Locations will be on the Front Range, most likely Boulder and Denver area. The first weekend will be at Aria Cohousing: 2835 W. Parkside Place, Denver, CO 80221
What Will You Gain from the Colorado Permaculture Teaching Course?
- Awareness of adult learning processes
- Assessment of personal assets
- Tools to effectively teach your knowledge
Expectations and Goals: Transformative Learning in the Rockies!
- Skill-building aligned with your goals
- Enhanced critical thinking abilities
- Reflection on your intentions and goals as an educator
- Understanding how goal setting drives learning outcomes
Immerse Yourself in Learning Interactions in Colorado!
- Apply documentation through note-taking and journaling
- Build a rich vocabulary of learning modalities
- Recognize your learning style’s impact on your teaching
- Observe how people learn through various teaching styles
Unleash Your Teaching Potential with Exciting Course Activities!
- Present three teaching modules to build self-confidence
- Receive supportive critiques for Adaptation and Advancement
- Identify your unique teaching style
- Push your edges in teaching creatively
- Culminate with a final group project: An Introduction to Permaculture Workshop
Secure Your Spot in this Colorado Permaculture Adventure!
Register now to ensure you don’t miss out on a transformative experience that combines the wisdom of Permaculture with strong community building. Elevate your teaching skills and be part of the movement for regenerative living!
Unlock the power to inspire change through whole systems teaching and learn to be a strong and grounded permaculture teacher. Join our dynamic and interactive Permaculture Teaching training and dive deep with the vibrant community of permaculturists who are committed to becoming permaculture teachers.
In this immersive course, you’ll delve into the art of teaching Permaculture principles and design while building a cohort of teachers. Our goal is to empower you to harness your strengths and abilities through engaging teaching techniques, including lectures, storytelling, class discussions, interactive activities, visual aids, and hands-on skills.
As a participant, you’ll thrive in a safe and active learning environment, gaining confidence through hands-on practice, preparing and co-teaching multiple presentations. Together, we’ll cultivate a regenerative approach to sharing information—be part of the Permaculture solution!
Instructors for the Teacher Training
Learn from seasoned instructors who have been teaching in Colorado and share in their local knowledge and experience.
Marco Chung-Shu Lam is the lead instructor for the course and will bring in some of the leading teachers in Colorado.
Marco Lam has been practicing and teaching permaculture and sustainable living skills for over twenty five years in diverse climates from the Andes to the Hawaiian islands. Originally trained by the founder of Permaculture, Bill Mollison, Marco’s teaching style moves away from the lecture format and emphasizes getting people’s hands in the soil. Marco is the founder of the Mandala Integrative Medicine Clinic and a renowned acupuncturist and herbalist who grows many of the herbs used in his practice. His vision is a melding of ecological sustainability and nature-based health care where our personal healing and our land stewardship are deeply intertwined.
Marco has been an active creator of new permaculture curriculum and pioneered the “Permaculture through the Seasons” course with Sandy Cruz and through the 9 month permaculture course planted seeds for a more robust permaculture community. Marco created the permaculture curriculum for the Environmental Studies department at Naropa University in 2006 and stewarded the program there for 6 years to become the most popular class on campus. Marco is currently managing a 700 acre permaculture farm in Northern Colorado with his wife Jamie and grows citrus and figs in a 2800 sq ft climate battery greenhouse and helps mountain communities become more self-sufficient. He is passionate and committed to teaching a new generation of earth stewards and healers to show up with their gifts and presence to help regenerate the relationship between people and the Earth.
Avery Ellis is an Ecological Designer with a whole systems approach to life. Avery was raised in New Jersey, the Garden state, by a master gardener. He has always felt a kinship with nature and the natural processes. He spent the past decade pursuing his passion for sustainability with experience ranging from permaculture design to natural building practices, solar installation to biodynamic farming, ecological waste treatment to communication dynamics and he loves to share his knowledge with the world. He holds a Masters degree in Ecological Design and a Bachelors of Science in Biology. He studied permaculture in India in 2006 and in the Rocky Mountains he has been learning and practicing permaculture since 2010. He has earned several Advanced Permaculture Design Certificates (2012-2014), and obtained his Permaculture Teacher’s Certificate in 2012. He was honored in 2017 to receive a Diploma in Permaculture Design from the Permaculture Institute of North America Integrating these skills into diverse businesses, he now focuses on designing ecosystems that serve humanity by mimicking natural processes. As an eco-entrepreneur, his business endeavors include: United Ecology and Colorado Greywater, where he brings science and craftsmanship together in his designs and installations.
Patrick Padden, a graduate of Colorado State University, studied natural systems building design in Namibia and urban food forest implementation in Johannesburg, South Africa (2007). Patrick received his design certificate from the International Permaculture Design Course in Harare, Zimbabwe in 2009 and in 2014 completed a Master’s Degree in Integrative Eco-Social Design with Gaia University. He spent five seasons growing organic food for the community at Sunrise Ranch. Patrick is currently living in Fort Collins with his wife and children. He is a practicing permaculturalist, consultant, public speaker, and educator through his company Padden Permaculture, where he offers residential landscape designs and installations.
Amy Scanes-Wolfe original interest in agriculture emerged by studying cultural anthropology at Middlebury College and realizing how closely our culture is shaped by how we get our food. After five years helping run two organic farms on the East coast, she discovered permaculture. Since then, she has helped found an urban ecovillage, interpreted cultural and natural history in various contexts, worked at Harlequins Gardens Sustainable Nursery, founded a permaculture landscaping business, and, most transformatively, worked in many capacities with Drylands Agroecology Research. During this time, Amy took the 2018 Boulder Permaculture Design Course as well as the 2020 Permaculture Teacher Training. Currently, Amy is the Executive Director of the Niwot Homestead, a project dedicated to relying on the power of community to cultivate a complete bioregional diet outside the scope of the traditional for-profit food economy.
Asia Dorsey calls ecofutures into existence by reweaving disentangled bodies into the fabric of relationship with the earth. Her students of ancestral food and herbal medicine at Bones Bugs and Botany learn to heed the instruction of mineral, microbial, and botanical beings towards the embodied liberation our communities deserve. Raised in the Historic Five Points Community in the Cheyenne Ute and Arapahoe territories, Asia draws from her education at the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia, her nourishing permaculture apprenticeship with Kay Baxter of the Koanga Institute, her studies with Vandana Shiva of Navdanya and her apprenticeship with Susun Weed of Woodstock NY and more to progenerate a practice of a People’s Medicine that is inherently empowering, suffused with ancestral wisdom and highly effective. Grounded in the movement for reparations , healing justice, and her earth-based practice, Asia teaches ecological design as a permaculture instructor with the Regenerative Education Collective of Denver. She uses her talent of pattern recognition to decipher and reintegrate the sacred instructions of plants and ecosystems into people systems as an organizational ecologist and consultant at Regenerate Change . You can find her balancing embodiment with botanical chaos and co-creating the Petty Herbalist Podcast helping her people to rise together in power and step into the wholeness that is their birthright. Explore her teachings and writings at www.bonesbugsandbotany.com
Becky Elder has been a life-long organic, Colorado gardener, beginning in 1975 in a tiny Denver garden. She moved to the Pikes Peak Region in 1983. Becky first became certified in permaculture and co-founded Pikes Peak Permaculture in 2002. A former Master Gardener with El Paso County, Becky devoted fifteen years to their programs and presenting to the public. She holds the Farm Design Certification from Darren Doherty’s Regrarians and other permaculture certifications.
Well known locally for her Earth-conscious Blue Planet Earthscapes, and as an environmental consultant, she is regionally known for her activism, as well as her nature-centered writing. Becky has worked hard to demonstrate resilient and sustainable practices , building regenerative and ecologically-sound landscapes within urban-suburban ecosystems and the wildland/urban interface.
Becky’s work has garnered many awards for sustainability and environmental protection. She continues to work through local groups as the Manitou Climate Action Working Group, Studio809 and, of course, Pikes Peak Permaculture.
Ansiima Casinga Rolande is a passionate permaculture and nutrition trainer dedicated to empowering refugee communities. With deep experience in the challenges refugees face, she founded FOLONA (For the Love of Nature). This community-based organization addresses vital issues such as permaculture implementation, women’s empowerment, climate change action, and reproductive health.
Ansiima’s work is centered on providing comprehensive training programs that equip refugees with practical skills to rebuild their lives and integrate into their new communities. Her approach emphasizes education, nature, community, health, and well-being. She is particularly committed to supporting women, offering open spaces for discussions on important topics like menstruation, financial security, and food and nutrition.
In recognition of her efforts, Ansiima received a Certificate of Commendation at the Youth in Climate Action Conference 2024. As an award-winning Permayouth hub leader, permaculture educator, arts coordinator, and nutrition advisor in Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Ansiima has hosted and assisted in numerous Permaculture Design Courses (PDCs) across Uganda. Her dedication to climate change resilience and community sustainability drives her to create lasting, positive change in the lives of those she serves.
We’re awaiting confirmation on several other teachers; Patrick Padden, Nic DiDomenico and Asia Dorsey. We’ll update this page when we have more info.