As I have already mentioned on several occasions, I am an advocate for wholistic education. Wholism is a worldview that emphasizes, among other things, looking at connections. This point of view has many implications for those of us who support… Read More
Playing in the Dirt
When I was a kid, I loved to play in the dirt. I still do! As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to talk about it differently. Now I say I’m preparing my garden, or digging a swale, or building soil,… Read More
Plant Something!
Today’s post is either a cop-out because I want to spend more time outside hiking and gardening or my most important post every, or maybe as little of each. Here’s my plea. Please, please, please grow things with your kids!… Read More
Get Muddy and Learn about the Water Cycle
When I was a kid, I took every opportunity I could to play with the flow of water. Living on the coast, as I did when I was young, we’d build berms to protect an area of sand from high… Read More
Relationships Between Organisms in Nature!
I am an ecological designer. My design domains are educational and food systems. As a ecological designer, I focus on designing systems that feature relationships that benefit all of the participants (i.e., mutualistic relationships). When I’m designing garden spaces, that… Read More
Sorting Soil – Rocks and Minerals
As I discussed in a previous tip, one of the major components of soil is particles of weathered (i.e., broken down) rock (along with water, air, organic matter and living organisms). In this activity we’re going to focus on sorting… Read More
Focusing on Relationships in Natural Building
In the last several homeschooling tips, I’ve talked about using relationships as a resource in wholistically designed systems. First, I recommended that your family explore mutualistic relationships by observing how they work in unplanned physical groupings of organisms in nature.… Read More
Base and Sector Mapping
Housing developments and factory farming are two examples of practices that fly in the face of wholistic design. These methodologies largely ignore the relationships between external influences and design elements. Instead, they work to obliterate differences in such influences in… Read More
How Healthy and How Mature: Observing Plants up Close and Personal
As I have mentioned many times before in these relaxed homeschooling activities, I am a wholistic designer. One of the many habits of wholistic design is spending some time observing things as they are, before trying to change or otherwise… Read More
Topography, Landforms and Contour Lines
Topography is important to hikers, gardeners and landscapers yet contour lines are hard to understand.