Yes! You will receive a Permaculture Design Certificate after your permaculture design project (our Design Workbook) is turned in and reviewed, following completion of the course.

The 24-week course starts May 20, 2023 and runs through November 19, 2023. The Quail Springs Online Permaculture Design Course is completely virtual - our most accessible PDC yet!

The 24-week model has proven to be less intensive and more accessible to participants with busy schedules. Additionally, the time frame gives students the opportunity to understand their design site over two seasonal transitions which helps create a more thoughtful permaculture design.

All of the above! In an effort to foster social permaculture and community building, we are expanding the standard single enrollment option by offering pair and group enrollments (3-5 people in a group).

Once you enroll, you will follow the course curriculum on your own, with your partner, or your group. For participants interested in a certificate, a completed design workbook is due on week 24. Pairs and groups will work on a single design project workbook for multiple certifications. 

Refund policy: Students can request a refund, minus a $60 cancellation fee, anytime before June 1st, 2023. After that time, we do not offer refunds on this course.

Deferred enrollments: We can consider transferring your enrollment to a future course on a case by case basis. However, this option is not guaranteed.

You can follow the curriculum at whatever pace you'd like, though we recommend learning the relevant topics before live sessions to get the most out of your education. To complete the 72 hour curriculum and the permaculture design project workbook, we expect the course to take approximately 4–7 hours of your time per week. This could look like an hour per day or more hours over less days.

There will be several Live Sessions happening throughout the 6 month course. All Live Sessions will be held on Zoom. This is where students will get the chance to interact with the instructors, ask questions, and share resources.

Live Sessions - Saturday morning (PST):  curriculum focused (8-10 total)
Live Sessions - Monday morning (PST):  design project workbook focused (4 total)

All Live Sessions will be recorded, so if you can’t make them or your time zone doesn’t line up, no worries! You can watch the recordings at your earliest convenience.

No, you won't miss any of the course!

The 24-week course duration offers an ample amount of time for post-launch registrations to catch up and complete the course.

The course will be mainly self-guided week to week, with the bulk of the curriculum being written and pre-recorded video content. A core part of this course (and all PDCs!) is the permaculture design project (optional) that you will be creating on your own, with a partner, or in a group. Participants will work on their projects week-to-week on their own with clear guidance.

The content will be released in segments to keep the learning pace more organized and less overwhelming. We understand that not everyone will have the same goals around permaculture. If you are interested in obtaining a QS Permaculture Design Course certificate of completion, we do encourage you to follow the weekly cadence of the course by staying on track and completing the design project work which is due on week 24.

This course will use 4 different platforms.

Main learning platform: (learn.quailsprings.org) You will be asked to create an account when you register and pay for the course. This is where you will follow the written and video curriculum week to week.

Google Docs: This is where you will be working on your permaculture design project week to week. The design project is optional, but required to obtain a Quail Springs Permaculture Design Course certificate of completion. To use Google Docs you will need a Google Account. If you don’t have a Google account, sign up here.

Slack: Our interactive course discussion forum will use Slack (what is this?). This is where participants will get the chance to interact with one another and instructors, ask questions, and share resources and projects! Before the course starts, participants will receive a Slack invitation via email with instructions on how to join - all will be asked to join the course Slack workspace. You can create your account here. Also, here's a tutorial to get you up and running with Slack.

Zoom: Zoom is an audio/video conferencing platform that we’ll use to virtually meet with you and the instructors during the Live Sessions. You can create a free account here. You don't need a Zoom account to use Zoom, but we highly encourage you to familiarize yourself with this platform.

We will have clear tutorials in the course curriculum for how to use all of these platforms, but we highly encourage you to familiarize yourself as much as possible and find other tutorials on them, so that we can all be ready to jump into this together.