Enterprise Viability & Right Livelihood for Agroecological Farmers

This fully asynchronous course introduces key elements of agroecology and entrepreneurship that support learners in balancing viable, sustainable livelihoods and businesses with the wellbeing of wider ecosystems.

Growing Your Own Food for Health & Security

An online, self-paced course designed to help transform your relationship with food and empower you to create a thriving kitchen garden right in your backyard.

Agroecology

Explore the history agroecology and gain a nuanced understanding of its many facets.

Surviving the Future: A Path Through Tumultuous Times

*** APRIL 2025: NOTE THAT THIS COURSE HAS BEEN UPGRADED AND MOVED FROM COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE TO A SUPERIOR OPEN SOURCE ALTERNATIVE.
ITS NEW HOME IS https://survivingthefuture.darkoptimism.org/ FOR ANY QUERIES, EMAIL info@darkoptimism.org ***

Affordable and available to take whenever you’re ready, this flexible, interactive online course demystifies the interlocking ecological, economic and social crises of our often frightening and confusing times. It offers a tantalizing cultural vision of how we might respond — reclaiming much that we miss — in the context of the diverse realities we each face today.

Featuring live facilitation from Shaun Chamberlin and recorded sessions from Nate Hagens, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Kate Raworth, Mark Boyle, Rob Hopkins, Isabelle Frémeaux, David Abram, Kali Akuno and Vandana Shiva.

Inclusive sliding-scale pricing and scholarships are available for this course. Discount codes and the scholarship application form are available at the bottom of this course's page.

Ecology Essentials for Everyone

Develop familiarity with ecological principles, facility with scientific thinking, and an ability to live more lightly on the Earth.

Food Systems Thinking

A self-paced course designed to develop the knowledge and skills of food systems partitioners, at all scales.

Appropriate Technologies for Human-Scale Farms

Designed for individuals involved in agriculture or agricultural development, this self-paced online course delves into the philosophy of technology and its implications for addressing the challenges faced by modern society.

Art and Science of Apiculture

In this course, you will learn the history of the inspirational relationship between bees and people, their fascinating biology, responsible and sustainable practical beekeeping techniques, how to use bees for art and food, and how bees fit into the greater ecological and agricultural landscape.

Holistic Health and Wellbeing

This succinct, fully asynchronous course explores diverse approaches to holistic health and wellbeing, including basic nutrition, cultural context, and consideration of what we consume beyond their caloric values.

Ecological Pest Management & Beneficial Insects

A self-paced course designed for farmers and gardeners who are interested in understanding ecological approaches to "pest" management.

Geographies of Exclusion and Resistance

This course will focus on the histories of appropriation of land, air and water and its connections to our contemporary agriculture and food systems. We will examine the underlying economic and philosophical narratives that informed movements and systems of often violent appropriation and commodification of natural resources. The purpose of this course will be to understand food regimes that have marked different epochs of time and their relationships to institutions and modes of enforcement. We will take a deeper dive to examine the stories of resistance, counternarratives and modes of organization that have always accompanied the dominant narratives and gain insight into possibilities for different ways of imagining our natural relationships.

Empathy as a Force for Social Change

Develop the skills and tools needed to interrogate and leverage shared and divergent political goals to build effective coalitions.

Showing Up for Change

Develop the skills and tools to unpack and manage the ways individual traumas and nervous systems shape who we are in community and in social movements

Culture, Coalition, and Movement Building

Develop the skills needed to define the theory and practice of movement building, honor and implement wisdom from previous and ongoing social movements, and clarify guiding goals, strategies, and roadblocks for the movements you aim to lead or support.

Communities of Care

Learn the skills and tools to advocate for and build cultures of care, prosocial behavior, inclusion, diversity, problem solving, harm reduction, and joy in community.

Story Justice

Understand how stories and storytelling can be used as a mechanism for shaping change.

Holistic Livestock Management

As a response to the current climate crisis, an unjust economy, and many other factors, many individuals and families are turning to small-scale livestock production to feed themselves and their communities. The skills needed for a successful livestock operation, which were once ubiquitous and commonplace, are now inaccessible for many. To many newcomers seeking information online, it is virtually impossible to distinguish genuine know-how from folly. This course aims to equip small scale producers with knowledge and practical know-how in general livestock husbandry, to include sheep, cattle, hogs, goats, and poultry. 

Rainwater Harvesting & Management

Rainwater harvesting is a term used to describe the collection, storage, and use of rainwater as close to where it falls as possible. The design of a rainwater harvesting system seeks to mimic the healthy ecosystems that naturally infiltrate water into the ground, so that it can continue its cycle through different forms of life unimpeded. In this course, we will discuss the benefits of rainwater harvesting, harvesting methods, and the major components of these systems. This course will serve as a guide to design your own collection system, whether at home, for use in your organoponic, or for your farm or garden.

Animal Ethics

A self-guided course that introduces the central issues, controversies, and dilemmas surrounding the use and treatment of animals, with a specific focus on the social and environmental implications of human-animal relationships.

Wellbeing Economy

EG Partner: Wellbeing Economy

Climate + Change

A self-guided course that equips learners with the knowledge and skills to understand the science of climate change and move toward solutions to combat our greatest existential threat.

Wellbeing Economy

Growing Your Own Food for Health & Security Hindi

An online, self-paced course designed to help transform your relationship with food and empower you to create a thriving kitchen garden right in your backyard.