Wild edible and medicinal plants grow all around us. They are very nutritious, need no cultivation and are free. In this workshop you will learn to identify and process a dozen or more common plants that grow in forests and meadows, along creeks and in our yards and gardens. We will discuss ethical harvesting and the nutritional benefits of wild plants.

Please bring a notebook and tape where you can press samples and take notes. Also bring a few clean bags or basket for harvesting. Following our walk-about collecting plants, we will prepare a lunch together.

The workshop will take place rain or shine on July 12th from 9:30am – 12:30pm. Consider also attending Solar Fest going on nearby all weekend.

Over the past decade, hundreds of college campuses have hired sustainability coordinators to address issues such as climate change, energy, organic and local foods, fair trade, green building, and zero waste. During this workshop, designed for high school and college age young people, Jim Merkel will share his experiences as Dartmouth's Sustainability Coordinator and highlight programs from other leading green campuses.

Presenter: Jim Merkel integrated environmentally and socially sustainable practices into Dartmouth College's operations, culture, and strategic plan. His projects include sustainable dining, solar thermal evaluation, carbon reduction, sustainable offices, Green Greeks, and solid waste reduction.

In his groundbreaking book Radical Simplicity, Jim Merkel asks us to "imagine you are first in line at a potluck buffet. The spread includes not just food and water, but all the materials needed for shelter, clothing, healthcare, and education. How do you know how much to take?" This presentation contains practical approaches to make sizable cuts in spending and footprints, both in our lives and in the workplace.

In conjunction with Longwood’s campus-wide focus on sustainability, the first-year reading selected for 2008-09 is Radical Simplicity:  Small Footprints on a Finite Earth by Jim Merkel.  Following the Exxon Valdez disaster, Merkel, a former military engineer, founded the Global Living Project and now focuses on developing tools for personal and societal sustainability.  First-year students will purchase copies of the text during Summer Orientation & Registration and Merkel will provide a lecture and workshops to the campus during New Lancer Days.  Additionally, Radical Simplicity will be included in the curriculum for Longwood Seminar.  A reading guide will be provided to all students upon purchase.

Jim will be the keynote speaker and his address will focus on “Wellness Through Simplicity.”

Even with the best intentions, it is easy enough these days for a person, any person, from urban dweller to back-to-the-lander, from any walk of life, to simply get too busy, too stressed out, too worried about their health and too worried about paying for the a-z health-related expenses common in our society. Jim will speak about practical ways of simplifying everything from your schedule book to your personal diet to your cluttered mental and physical closets.

Through radically shifting our consumerism habits we can gain a degree of freedom and free time that allows for a steady diet of un-stressed life. And with this extra dose of free time, of course we could flip through more channels. Alternatively, this freedom could: boost our frequency of transporting our bodies under our own power; up the time spent with loved ones; crank-up our knowledge about a-z preventative medicine and herbalism; breath in the fresh air while planting an herb and vegetable garden; prepare nutritious and tasty locavore meals with friends; and possibly even do something very radical, do nothing for a while.

Information to come

A three-day retreat focused upon living and breathing a materially and psychically simple life.