Sustainable Gardens' Course Syllabus

Instructor: David King
Email: greenteach@roadrunner.com
Phone: I will give it to you via email


COURSE TITLE AND NUMBER: Sustainable Gardens; BIOLOGY X498.5

There are no prerequisites for this course. We will meet from April 15 through May 06 for 6 meetings. There are two field trips as indicated in our schedule (below); the first to the John T. Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies at Cal Poly Pomona and then to EarthWorks Community Farm . Both trips are scheduled on Saturdays, 9 AM to 1 PM.

All other times class will meet 6:30 PM in La Kretz Hall, Room 120 on Tuesday evenings.
Course Purpose
This course will enable students to understand and appreciate the changes we will need to make in our gardens to achieve ‘sustainability.’ A multitude of differing strategies will be presented allowing students to choose the extent of their involvement with more sustainable gardens and, ultimately, a more sustainable life style.

Course Objectives
1. Understand the concept of sustainability and its relevance to the modern garden.
2. The reasons to consider sustainability.
3. Be able to use the concept of sustainability in the creation of a garden and its maintenance.
4. Understand and be able to present to others the concepts and ideas of sustainability and the myriad of alternatives to an overtly consumptive garden style.

Application
This course is designed to be applicable. Upon completion, students will be able to employ many different strategies to reduce consumption of water and oil-produced products and create beautiful and productive gardens that comprise a much smaller carbon footprint than most contemporary gardens.


Text for this course:
This course will not have a text. There will be an extensive bibliography from which the material presented has been gleaned; some books will be practical, some books theoretical, while others will present an overview of our current situation and the problems that affect our daily lives and the gardens we grow.


Class Schedule
Date Mtg TOPIC
04/15 1 Lecture: Introduction – roll, Extension policy, meeting time and place, attendance and tardiness, objectives. What is Sustainability and Why Does It Matter? What is it’s place in our gardens?
04/22 2 Lecture: Water, It’s Place in Our Lives and Gardens
04/26 3 Field Trip to John T. Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies at Cal Poly Pomona
04/29 4 Lecture: Plants and Planting Design for Conservation of Resources
05/06 5 Lecture: Recycle, Reuse and Repurpose
05/10 6 Field Trip to EarthWorks Community Farm – Final Requirements for Credit Students to be submitted

Your grade will be predicated on class participation and a paper of no less than 5 pages on one aspect of sustainability, topics will be discussed in class. I encourage students to use their own area of interests when choosing their topic.

Office Hours
I have no set office hours, however, I am available by phone (the number above is my cell phone) and by email. I am willing to meet with students almost any day of the week at my office at The Learning Garden or a mutually convenient coffee bar. It is my most sincere desire that you learn and you will find me very approachable.

After class is usually not a very good time because that’s when all students vie for answers and we are all tired after a long day. You can net a more thoughtful answer by contacting me another time.

Updates and Handouts
For this course I will utilize my personal blog page (lagarden.blogspot.com) to post handouts and extra material to the class. There is an RSS feed through which each posting is automatically forwarded to your email so you can have access to handouts whenever they are posted. This approach is most handy when dealing with field trips because links to maps can be posted and any last minute updates are easily available. If this technology is new to you, another classmate or I will guide you through it. It is not difficult.

david