In celebration of their 20th anniversary, the Idaho Falls Community Garden Association is sponsoring a free talk and a daylong seed school with Bill McDorman, founder of High Altitude Seeds and Seeds Trust and former executive director of Native Seed Search.
The talk on Friday is free, but the cost of the seminar on Saturday is $75, including lunch. Registration is limited to 25 participants and is offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Partial scholarships for the seed school are available to all students who register for the daylong seminar. Bill is a passionate and knowledgeable presenter who inspires his audiences to rejoin the ritual of seed saving. Sign up today to ensure a spot for this outstanding seminar! More information from http://integratedsustainablesolutions.com/ifcga/happen.htm: Bill is Executive Director and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance (RMSA), a new non-profit seed conservation organization serving the Rocky Mountain West. He was previous director of Native Seeds/SEARCH in Tucson and has founded 3 seed companies including High Altitude Gardens and co-founded several non-profits including the Sawtooth Botanical Garden in Hailey, Idaho. He is author of Basic Seed Saving. Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance has created an innovative week-long training called Seed School, the educational center-piece of RMSA, which has graduated over 600 Seed Citizens since its inception in September of 2010. It was recently adapted so that it could also be presented in a one-day format called SEED SCHOOL IN A DAY. Casey O'Leary, a passionate seed producer and steward from the Snake River Seed Cooperative in Boise, will be instructing alongside Bill. Seed School In A Day topics will cover seed saving, biology, terminology, cleaning and storage, seed enterprises (exchanges, libraries, and businesses), and more. Hands-on activities are balanced with engaging lectures for a diverse learning experience.To learn more about SEED SCHOOL IN A DAY and to register for the seminar visit the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance website at rockymountainseeds.org (click on this link to go straight to the registration page) This is a great opportunity for students, alumni, and faculty. Don't miss out! Have you heard about Come Alive Outside? If you were living under a rock last semester maybe you missed it. Don't worry, keep reading and you'll be all caught up. So what is it? From the Come Alive Outside website: When you think back to your childhood, what do you remember? Is it that one Saturday when you sat in the living room and watched reruns all day? Or is it something that happened outside? Maybe the first time you caught a fish? What about that time when you came home so muddy that your mom had to spray you off with the hose before she even let you into the garage? Remember that tree you used to sit under? How about that one snowman that didn’t melt for two whole months? Come Alive Outside is a reminder of what works. It is a reminder of what makes our lives healthy and our memories special. Over the past three years, these three words have inspired individuals, families, business and communities across North America to take action to get back outdoors. The Come Alive Outside initiative was started by Jim Paluch in 2010, in response to the sedentary, indoor lifestyle that is contributing to a multitude of adverse effects in our society. BYU-Idaho was honored to collaborate with the Come Alive Outside initiative and have Jim Paluch join our Come Alive Outside celebration October 8, 2014. This was a day to share with the entire campus and community what the BYU-Idaho Horticulture department is passionate about: being outside! We partied in the gardens with apple catapults, zip lines, rope swings, slack lines, zumba, and more. A party isn't complete without food, and we ate well with fresh pressed apple cider (using apples right from our orchard), a potato bar, and pizzas made fresh in the brick oven at Patsy's Porch. To top it off we were privileged to listen to Mr. Paluch share his experiences with working outside and why we need to encourage everybody to spend more time outside. Here's a taste of what our Come Alive Outside celebration looked like: But there's more to all of this than simply playing outside. It's about creating spaces to enjoy being in nature, but also creating spaces outside for imaginative play. That's where the "Come Alive Outside Design Challenge" comes in. Last year our design/build students participated in the pilot program. They worked with students from Madison High School to design a new playground for BYU-Idaho’s preschool. Check out what they did here. This year the Design Challenge became a design competition, and you better believe that BYU-Idaho is a top competitor! From the Come Alive Outside website: The Come Alive Outside Design Challenge creates the opportunity for college, high school, elementary and pre-school students to work together with landscape professionals to design and build engaging outdoor learning environments at schools and childcare facilities. In 2014-2015 the Design Challenge is being completed by nine teams in communities across North America, with college horticulture and landscape design students helping to bring together the partners in each community that work to create the opportunity for young people to interact with nature! Take a look at what was created for this year's design competition: BYU-Idaho is one of the 3 finalists for the competition. The judging process is currently underway and you can be a part of it! The winners will be determined through a combination of scores from a professional Judging Panel and the results of a popular vote. The winning team will receive $1000 to go towards the construction of the project.
Did you read that??? We can win ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. All it takes is a simple click. Your vote only counts once so after you're done voting spread the word and help us lock in that coveted first place. To vote click here. |
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