Syllabi | Campus Compact

Syllabi | Campus Compact

This page links to over 300 service-learning syllabi across a wide range of disciplines, including an introductory statement that provides a framework for educators to conceptualize how service learning could work in their courses.

Note: Some courses may have several related disciplines, so browse any relevant courses.

To read the criteria for inclusion in the database click here. If you have a compelling syllabus, we invite you to submit it on our website. All submissions must be reviewed and accepted before we post them. Please see terms of service.

fenced chicken coop/garden

Save time and energy with the fenced chicken coop/garden by John Silveira Issue #44

My engineer father was not fond of wasting time or energy. He was always searching for a better, more efficient way to perform chores, especially chores that reoccurred often. Two re-occurring chores he enjoyed were gardening and raising chickens, and he decided that he could make both the gardening and the raising of a chicken flock even more enjoyable by making them more efficient. He realized that both chores were essentially feeding operations. You feed the garden to make it produce food, and you feed the chickens to make them produce eggs and, well, more chickens. So he decided that the best way to make both more efficient was to combine them and let them help feed each other. To achieve this he built his “self-fertilizing” chicken coop/garden. The idea was so simple that he probably wasn’t the first person ever to have done it, but I’ve never seen another one like it. What he did was build a chicken coop with two small access doors, one on the east side, and the other on the west side. Each door was for the chickens, and they led to separate fenced-in yards. On the north side of the coop was a regular sized door for us. On the south side was a wide window with a hinged wooden cover. That window looked directly out onto a compost heap. Each time the coop was cleaned, everything was shoveled out through that window. That first year the chickens had the run of the yard on the east side of the coop. He kept the access door on the west side closed, and in that yard he planted the family’s vegetable garden. By putting the yards on the east and west sides, he ensured both yards had maximum exposure to the sun. With the coop on the north side, he later told me, he minimized the shadow the chicken house cast over the garden. Our access to each fenced yard was through a gate in the fence. With the fences, he not only kept the chickens where he wanted them, he kept predators away from the chickens, pests out of the garden, the neighbors’ dogs out of the compost, and they provided a lattice upon which his beans and other climbing plants could flourish. In the fall, after that year’s garden had been harvested, he closed the door on the east side of the coop and opened the west side. The chickens now had the run of the old garden with its remnants of the harvested plants as well as the plants that had gone to seed. My father, in the meantime, set about turning over the chicken dropping-enriched soil in what had been the chicken yard on the east side. With its year of chicken droppings and the compost he tilled in from the compost pile, he was setting the stage for a great garden the following year. The chickens, now in the west side yard, were happily scrounging in the old garden and preparing the soil for next year’s garden. It was so efficient that he never found the need to improve upon it, and he kept that engineer efficient chicken coop/garden going for years.

Resources -- Learn more -- Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning

Resources -- Learn more -- Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning

Local Food Systems

Learn more

CMAP has created a variety of tools and resources to help local governments, businesses, and residents support and strengthen local food systems. The GO TO 2040 plan served as the basis for much of the research cited throughout this microsite, and relevant legislation can shed light on current trends and initiatives. There are some great examples of partnerships coming together to support sustainable local food systems here in the region, with more to come in the future through CMAP's Local Technical Assistance (LTA) program.

TOOLS

Municipal Strategies to Support Local Food:  In September 2012, CMAP created a two-partguide to help local governments incorporate local food in their comprehensive plans and ordinances.
 

Educational brochure:  CMAP created a short, educational local food brochure that summarizes many of the points made on this microsite. This brochure be printed and distributed as an educational outreach tool for those interested in supporting local food systems. An additional document provides references for the statistics cited in the brochure. (Note: To download PDF, right-click on link and select "save link as.")
 

Local Food Video:  We encourage you to share the local food video featured on this microsite. The video can be distributed by sharing a link to www.cmap.illinois.gov/food.  If you would like to show the video at a community meeting, request a copy on DVD by contacting Hillary Green (hgreen@cmap.illinois.gov). The video can be embedded on your own website or blog using the following code:  

Local Food Presentation:  If you would like CMAP to give a presentation to your Village Board, City Council, or community group on actions that can be taken to support local food systems, contact Jason Navota (312-386-8750 or jnavota@cmap.illinois.gov). 
 

POLICY

GO TO 2040:  The GO TO 2040 comprehensive regional plan includes a section "Promoting Sustainable Local Food," which provides a wealth of information and targeted strategies for supporting local food systems. The section is summarized at www.cmap.illinois.gov/2040/local-food-systems and can be downloaded in full at http://tinyurl.com/bv8cjmz.
 

Federal Farm Bill:  Information about the proposed federal Farm Bill, the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2012, and past Farm Bills are available at www.ag.senate.gov/issues/farm-bill. Learn more about the Farm Bill on CMAP's Policy Updates blog. 
 

State Legislation:  The 2009 Illinois Local Food, Farms, and Jobs Act (Public Act 96-0579) sets procurement goals for the purchase of local food by state and state-funded agencies, and it also created the Local Food, Farms, and Jobs Council to help facilitate the growth of an Illinois-based local farm and food product economy. Other relevant state legislation includes:

• Public Act 96-0418, which amends the Environmental Protect Act to redefine composting.
• Public Act 96-0620, which prevents health departments from discouraging the purchase or consumption of locally grown foods.
• The Farm Fresh Schools Program Act, which is designed to reduce obesity, improve nutrition and public health, and strengthen local food production in part through offering locally grown fruits and vegetables in schools.
• Public Act 97-0393, which establishes definitions for "cottage food operation" and "potentially hazardous food."
• Public Act 97-0394, which created the Farmers' Market Task Force to assist in enacting administrative regulations for farmers' markets across the state.

Illinois Fresh Food Fund:  In July 2012, Illinois launched a Fresh Food Fund to increase the availability of fresh food in communities and neighborhoods, which is recommended by GO TO 2040 to spur private investment in supermarkets and grocery stores in underserved areas. IFF, a nonprofit community development financial institution, is overseeing the lending program, which includes loan and grant products.

Openlands Farmland Protection:  Local nonprofit Openlands offers a wealth of resources and education tools through its Farmland Protection initiative. 
 

EXAMPLES IN REGION

GO TO 2040 Case Studies Library:  CMAP collects examples of work from around the seven-county region to exemplify the goals and objectives of GO TO 2040, including projects relating to local food. The Case Studies Library is an interactive map and profiles Irv & Shelly's Fresh Picks, as well as pilot program for farmer's markets to accept Link cards. Submit your own local food case study on-line.

Lake County:  Through its LTA program, CMAP has been working with a group of nonprofit, public, and private partners throughout Lake County to explore potential for a more sustainable food system in the county.  Learn more at http://www.cmap.illinois.gov/lake-county-food.

Chicago:  The City of Chicago adopted changes to its Zoning Ordinance in September 2011 tosupport urban agriculture.

Evanston:  Evanston passed an ordinance in 2010 that allows residents to raise hens in their backyards as pets and for food.

Resources | Civil Eats

Resources | Civil Eat

Sustainable Food Organizations

Chef’s Collaborative brings chefs together from across the nation to provide educational resources and professional food services to support the culinary community.

Edible Schoolyard Project established in 1996 by nationally-acclaimed chef Alice Waters—supports educational programs that empower youth and promote locally-grown, fair, and sustainable food.

Farmers Market Coalition seeks to strengthen farmers markets’ capacity to serve farmers, consumers, and communities by providing the rapidly growing movement with information, tools and representation at state and federal levels. FMC includes newsletters, resource libraries, tips, and videos.

FarmsReach is a networking site aims to help farmers improve their financial situation, decrease their environmental footprint, and develop strategic partnerships with farm input suppliers, agriculture lenders, and service providers.

Finance for Food develops written materials, workshops, conference tracks, and other educational opportunities to help food system entrepreneurs identify and secure values-aligned financing.

Good Eggs serves as a guide to eating well as well as an online database in which individuals may locate local farmers and vendors.

La Cocina is a group that aims to aid low-income food entrepreneurs as they formalize and grow their businesses by providing affordable commercial kitchen space, industry-specific technical assistance and access to market and capital opportunities.

Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture is a non-profit farm and education center in Pocantico Hills, New York that holds children’s education programs.

Sustainable Food Jobs connects individuals to current job opportunities and resources in the sustainable development arena.

Sustainable Eating & Living 

American Community Gardening Association is a non-profit organization of professionals and volunteers that supports community greening in urban and rural communities.

Eat Well Guide is an aggregation of 25,000+ handpicked, locally grown listings ranging from bed and breakfasts, bakers, butchers, caterers, educational centers, markets, and coffee shops.

Fertile Ground is a blog on food policy, alternative crops, the growth industry, and food security.

Food Alliance is an organization that aims to promote sustainability in agriculture and the food industry and ensure safe and fair working conditions, humane treatment of animals, and careful stewardship of ecosystems.

Growing Power facilitates the development of Community Food Systems by providing educational and technical assistance to youth groups, farmers, and sustainable advocates.

Just Food is a non-profit organization that aims to unite communities and local farms to make fresh, locally grown food accessible to all New Yorkers.

Local Harvest is a website that enables individuals to locate farmers markets, family farms, and other resources of sustainably grown food around the nation.

Oakland Food Connection promotes nutritional awareness, access to healthy foods, and connections between people and our planet.

People’s Grocery is a health organization dedicated to improving the economy and wellness of West Oakland through the development of local, sustainable food systems.

Roots of Change works to develop and support networks of leaders and institutions in California who have an interest in created a sustainable food system.

Slow Food USA the second largest slow food association in existence—is an organization committed to establishing a global, local and sustainable food system.

Soil Association founded in 1946 by a group of farmers, scientists and nutritionists is the UK’s leading membership charity campaigning for healthy, humane, and sustainable food.

Wasted Food is a blog that sheds light on the problem of wasted food, as Americans waste more than 40 percent of the food that they produce for consumption.

Politics, Policy, & Governance 

The Center for Food Safety is a public interest organization that challenges harmful food production technologies through litigation and legal petitions.

Center for Rural Affairs is a national, rural organization dedicated to the protection and rebuilding of rural America.

Community Alliance with Family Farmers advocates for family farmers and sustainable agriculture.

Consumers Union is a nonprofit information organization that promotes consumer protection.

Environmental Working Group is an organization that aims to spread information to the public in order to protect community health and the environment.

Farm Aid is an organization dedicated to protecting family farmers.

Farm Policy News is a daily news source that analyzes farm policy.

Food Bank for New York City is an organization that tackles hunger on three fronts: food distribution, income support and nutritional education. FB also sponsors government-funded nutritional education programs and income support services.

Food First: The Institute for Food and Development Policy aims to eliminate the injustices that cause hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation through research, advocacy, and education.

Food & Water Watch is a group dedicated to ensuring the safety and sustainability of the food, water, and fish that consumers eat.

Green for All is a national organization working to create and implement programs that increase quality jobs and opportunities in the green industry.

Marler Blog provides commentary on food poisoning outbreaks and litigation.

National Family Farm Coalition is an organization that works on family farm issues. NFFC represents 24 grassroots organizations in 32 states.

National Young Farmers’ Coalition is an organization that represents, mobilizes, and engages young farmers to ensure their success.

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is an alliance of grassroots organizations that advocates for federal policy reform to advance the sustainability of agriculture, food systems, natural resources, and rural communities.

Organic Consumers Association is an organization campaigning for health, justice, and sustainability.

Pesticide Action Network works to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with ecologically sound and socially just alternatives.

Union for Concerned Scientists – founded by students and faculty members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — is a science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world.

Animal Protection & Welfare

American Grassfed Association is a national multi-species organization dedicated to protecting and promoting grassfed producers and grassfed products.

Eat Wild is a compilation of news, research, and listings on grass-fed (i.e.- beef, lamb, goats, bison, poultry, pork, dairy) foods and facts and other wild edibles.

The Humane Society of the United States – the nation’s largest animal protection organization– helps animals by advocating for better laws, and conducting campaigns to reform industries.

Seafood Watch is the Monterey Bay Aquarium seafood watch program that helps consumers and businesses make appropriate choices.

Media

Beginning Farmers is a comprehensive compilation of information resources on farm financing, business planning, agricultural production, and marketing.

Chews Wise an organic and sustainable food blog.

Cooking Up a Story is an online television show and blog about food and sustainable living, showing unique documentary stories about farmers and ranchers, food artisans, and others whose lives center around sustainable agriculture.

Culinate is a website dedicated to articles, recipes, and podcasts regarding the sustainable food movement.

Daily Yonder is a daily, multi-media source of news, commentary, research, and features relating to rural America.

Ecocentric is a blog that catalogues the relationship between food, water, energy, and environmental issues.

Edible Communities is the nation’s largest publishing company dedicated to the local foods movement.

Fair Food Project promotes a socially just food system through sharing the stories and voices of farm workers, growers, and fair food advocates.

Farm Policy is a political blog about topics ranging from agricultural economy to farming legislation.

Food & Environment Reporting Network is the first and only independent, non-profit news organization that produces investigative journalism in the critically underreported areas of food, agriculture, and environmental health.

Food Politics is nationally acclaimed writer/educator Marion Nestle’s blog about nutrition and food policy.

Food Sleuth Radio is a community radio that covers topics ranging from science to politics, and to health.

Free from Harm is a blog that aims to empower the conscious, vegetarian, and vegan community.

Greenhorns is a grassroots organization whose mission is to support young farmers.

Grist is a news source on climate, energy, food, living, and technology.

Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues interprets rural issues for metro news media, conducts seminars, and publishes research concerning rural journalism.

Lettuce Eat Kale is a blog on food, family, and agriculture.

MichaelPollan.com is the Web site of author Michael Pollan, a hub for resources.

Obama Foodorama is a blog dedicated to uncovering the food and nutrition initiatives of the Obama Administration.

On Food is journalist Mark Bittman’s New York Times opinion column on food.

Mother Jones is where you can find food politics reporting by Tom Philpott.

Politics of the Plate is a blog about the intersections between governance and policy and food and agriculture.

SuperBug is a science blog at WIRED penned by Maryn McKenna that looks at food safety and antibiotic resistance.

Students and Schools Taking Action

Cofed is an organization that aims to inspire individuals to create more sustainable food systems.

The Edible Schoolyard Project is a network of educators, students, and chefs that enable individuals to share their stories and take action concerning the Farm-to-School movement.

Real Food Challenge is an organization that leverages the power of youth and universities to create a healthier, fairer, and greener food system.

Yale Sustainable Food Project is a Farm-to School initiative involving students, faculty members, and community interests groups at Yale University.

Artificial Intuition

Artificial Intuition

Most humans have not been taught logical thinking, but most humans are still intelligent. Most of our daily actions such as walking, talking, and understanding the world are based on Intuition, not Logic.

Intuition is surprisingly easy to implement in computers, but requires a lot of memory.

"Artificial Intelligence" is not a technology. It is a problem domain that is delineated by the criterion that arriving at solutions would require intelligence. We will recognize Intelligence when we see it; a Turing Test will not be required.

I expect Artificial Intuition (AN) to become an important building block in "AI" systems - Those that aspire to solve problems in domains that we think require "Intelligence". But many of these domains can likely be handled using Artificial Intuition alone. I believe AN-based systems will, on their own, be able to provide impressive results in areas like Document Understanding, Speech Recognition, OCR Correction, Entity Extraction, Machine Translation, Web Page Quality Analysis, and Semantic Search; in short, in areas that require discovery of Semantics from lower level representations such as text, DNA sequences, and other streams of spatiotemporal events.

In what follows I will argue that AN approaches are Biologically Plausible; that they rather elegantly sidestep many problems and limitations of Logic-based AI approaches; and that they are likely to be implementable in current or near-future generations of computer hardware.

I will begin by analyzing why certain kinds of problems are thought to "require intelligence"; next I will contrast Intuition- and Logic-based problem-solving mechanisms; and I attempt to make plausible that these difficult and important problems require Intuition rather than Logic.

Be forewarned that acceptance of these ideas will likely require a different stance on the nature of Artificial Intelligence, the nature of Intelligence in general, and on Science itself. Some people, including scientists in disciplines like Ecology and Systems Biology have adopted this stance; if everything on this site sounds to you like "motherhood and apple pie", then you know you already have.

Sustainable Agriculture | Unity College

Majors | Unity College: The B.S. in Sustainable Agriculture is designed to prepare students for careers in sustainable agriculture and food systems. The program emphasizes small-scale, local, sustainable agriculture, blending applied knowledge of plants and soils, the context of environmental change, and skills necessary to problem solve and advocate for the role of agriculture in building healthy communities. Our alums include organic farmers, plant health specialists, a plant breeding technician, an advancement director of a major community food organization, a director of a seed conservation society, a staff member of a farmland conservation organization, a research greenhouse manager, several soil scientists, and many more.

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School of Forest Resources & Conservation

SFRC Staff

Larry Lawson
Senior Biological Scientist
Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory
1408 24th Street S.E.
Ruskin, FL 33570-5434
813.671.5230 ext. 112
Fax: 813.671.5234
lllawson187@ufl.edu

Creative Industries - Compost Cities: A new way of developing urban creativity - Articles - Open Innovation

Creative Industries - Compost Cities: A new way of developing urban creativity - Articles - Open Innovation

Compost Cities: A new way of developing urban creativity

By: Gregory KeeffeApril 30, 2012 5:11 PM

The last twenty years of cultural masterplanning, biennials and me-too urbanism has finally revelaed its fruits – nothing at all! The city is no more ‘cultural’ than when we started.  We need  new models of urban culture and its production and propagation in the city, ones that look at culture as a production process as messy as Victorian industry rather than a series of santised objects or economically successful businesses , as Robert Smithson once said, “They must think art is dead… they keep putting it in mausoleums! In fact, culture is fungal, by definition:  and it grows in cracks and fissures in the city.

 

Cities are dynamic, living things, and they and the things in them bloom and decay, and this process is difficult, if not impossible, to manage. The current strategy among city governors and urbanists is to try and create an arts quarter, built around some edifice such as a venue or centre. However, this generally fails, for two reasons: firstly that the venue is a charity, and eventually money runs out, and secondly because culture is an underground thing, and most players do not want to be part of anything ‘official’, so go elsewhere.  We need a new transaction dynamic that is inclusive, and liberal, I call this the compost city.

The idea of composting is well-known to gardeners who use their waste to produce new fertilizer, but is less well-known in civic governance. The Compost City starts with the recognition that culture is an emergent phenomenon, and generally occurs in urban areas, and generally produced by ‘outsiders’.  Cutlural producers are wild things – they need to live in forests and not zoos.  When we analyse cultural quarters of cities – areas such as The Northern Quarter, Manchester; Rope Walks, Liverpool; or Clerkenwell or Hackney in London, we find there is a key duality – they are creative places, but also dangerous places.  In the first instance cultural players are drawn there for three reasons: the first is pschyo-geographic – that these places ‘have an edge’ , the second is market-based, that they are visible to the consumer,  and finally pragmatism: they are cheap to occupy.

The places of production of culture (above) are nothing like the places of consumption (below)

These areas are the spatial context and, as culture is emergent, then this spatial context ends up shaping the culture, making it unique and ‘place-based’. This is clearly obvious in Manchester, where the post-industrial derelict city shaped and finally branded its music as ‘industrial’ and then as ‘Manchester music’, which is very different from ‘Liverpool music’ produced only 50km away.

Although it may be possible to determine the apparently perfect mix of classes and peoples, for a creative city, as Richard Florida suggests, it is much more difficult to attract them to an area, even using architectural design. The reason for this is that the production of architecture and its permanence is much slower in development than the culture that it is responding to. This is put eloquently by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaus: ‘The areas of consensus shift unbelievably fast: the bubbles of certainty are constantly exploding…increasingly there is a discrepancy between the acceleration of culture and the slowness of architecture’.  This means that we can never design and produce buildings quick enough for specific cultures, and there will always be redundant, ill-fitting buildings in the city, as the production of physical space in the city creates a time-lag, and this time-lag manifests itself in redundant infrastructure - fissures, and culture likes this sort of space.

The new urban dynamic and its management

We need a new dynamic, process-based city-culture model which is ecological and successional:

Decay: the key to the process is that redundant city infrastructure decays very quickly: business and people move out and property prices decrease. This spatial dynamic creates an environment I have coined ‘the collapsoscape’.  In the collapsoscape, almost any new intervention is guaranteed to fail, as the economics of speculation are in reverse: buildings depreciate instead of appreciating when finished. This creates an uncertain market that quickens the decline. Eventually all that is left is decaying buildings at rock-bottom prices.

Colonisation by producers: This ecology is perfect for alternative underground culture to grow, as creative people are generally on low incomes and are short of money, and rents will be peppercorn, and the general decay creates the edge that is needed. The place will be colonized particularly quickly if the redundant infrastructure is within walking distance of the places of consumption in the city.

Consumer awareness:  Comsumption of culture is key for its propagation: the people who are early consumers of this underground culture are of two types: firstly, those in rapture, young people, for example students from colleges and universities or dropouts from them; and secondly, usually by general revulsion, the establishment. Thus the area generally needs to be near or en-route to both these sectors’ zones in the city—for the first the university campus and secondly the Central Business District. This is important, particularly for visual arts, as the intended audience, both friend and foe, needs to be nearby. 

Recontextualisation: The use of this redundant space by alternative cultures ends its redundancy and the space is recontextualized and then rebranded as art/creative space. Larger market players in the creative industry flock to the area as they feed on young talent. This completes the turnaround, as this sort of space is very popular with media types and developers, because when rebranded, it creates a friendly street scene that is good to inhabit.: the edge has gone.

Regeneration  Now the area has new value, people begin to speculate, and the area regenerates. Underground culture then moves on, to cheaper more edgy haunts. This dynamic is seen clearly in Manchester with the later development of the Northern Quarter once Hulme had regenerated during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Thus the redevelopment of the collapsoscape cannot be forced: like its collapse, its resurgence is emergent too. The dynamic of composting needs to be adhered to, and short-term fixes are difficult.  Creative industries are ephemeral and the contexts they create equally fleeting: Cities need to engage with the dynamic and work with it rather than against it, this means supporting the underground (the compost) , rather than the existing big players (the flowers).  The problem is cities usually do not want to engage in this way- either socially, economically or spatially, as it is too messy.  Which is exactly the issue: cultural production is messy.

Greg Keeffe

Professor of Architecture

Queens University Belfast.

Organoponicos

Organoponicos
One representative organoponico was studied in detail while complementary information was collected from ten others

Intensive urban horticultural production systems
Cultivation takes place in container beds filled with an organic matter and soil mix
Cultivation techniques include crop rotations, intercropping, use of beneficial insects, organic fertilizers (worm compost, sugar-cane waste), manual weeding and biological control
Results
It was determined that the organoponico operations practise a form of ecological agriculture that is “functionally organic” since the major flows are organic and the system is ecologically sound
To meet internationally recognized organic marketing standards some practices would have to be changed such as the use of prohibited inputs and the lack of production records
Future of organoponicos?
There are concerns that under changing economic conditions farmers may abandon ecological production methods in favour of cheap chemical inputs

Yahoo! Research

Yahoo! Research

Yahoo! Research is the central advanced research organization of Yahoo! Inc., a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide.

We're responsible for big inventions - our goals are nothing short of inventing the future of the Internet and creating the next generation of businesses for Yahoo!

Sandbox from Yahoo! Research

Sandbox from Yahoo! Research

Yahoo! Sandbox was built to give you a sneak peek at our projects in the works. We created a virtual playground for you to take our innovations for a test drive.

We welcome you to try out our big inventions and be the first to see the next generation of businesses for Yahoo!

Processes for Councils

Back to Web of Life:

The beauty of Councils of All Beings is that there are no set ways to do it. All kinds of process and activities are very powerful. Here are write ups of both old and new pieces of the work to inspire you.

Eco-milling

Shambhala Story

Mourning

Evolutionary Journey - Future Human Visualisation

Surrender to Earth

100 Year Circle

Open Heart During Milling

Other Process Notes

ECO-MILLING — John Seed
We are here because our world is in distress ...
Of course you can make up different steps for the milling, but the ones I commonly use are:
1. Walk around fast looking at the ground. 
2. Slow down, watch your breath. 
3. Start to make eye contact. 
4. Take a couple of minutes each to share ... maybe something important/transformative that's happened to you in Nature. Or: Here is a person living on planet Earth at the same time as you. Share with them something you love about yourself, and something you love about the Earth.

5. Person "A" put up your hand. Put the palms of your hands together and person A lead, person B follow. After a couple of minutes, "person B lead, A follow". After a couple minutes more: "now, without stopping your movement, continue but with neither leading nor following.

6. Look into this persons eyes and let the thought arise in your mind that here is a person who loves Nature, that's why they're here for this weekend. Consider the millions of people who are doing something else (e.g....), but this person is here out of that love of Nature and desire for her wellbeing. Allow whatever feelings may arise in response to this thought (pause for a minute). Now, dropping this thought, allow the thought to arise in your mind that here is a person who has great knowing about what's happening to our world ... they know which mighty power dropped which bomb on which other mighty power in August 1945 ... they know which countries are preparing to do far worse even now ... they know (whatever you want to fill in here). Once again, allow any feelings to arise in response to this thought. Now consider the dangers in the world that this person inhabits. They could die of a cancer as a result of the poisons spewing into their environment. They could die in a nuclear holocaust. Indeed, this could happen at any moment and without warning. In fact, these could be the last pair of eyes that you'll ever look into. Again, invite any feelings that may want to arise in response to this thought.

7. Take this person's left hand in yours and begin to explore it. Feel the texture, the heat/cold, moist/dry, explore it with great wonder, as if you've never felt anything like it before. The skin, bones, knuckles, sinews, strong opposable thumb etc. Now, see what this hand can teach you of it's history. Is this a hand that has done a lot of hard manual labour? etc. Now allow this hand to take you back, see if you can feel the hand of the child that once was this hand, the baby, now even further back, can you feel the paw in this hand? the claws that led to these nails... the fin... can you feel the very dust of stars of which this hand is composed?... Now, with your eyes still closed, without words, say goodbye to this hand and start milling again.

8. Blind walk. Person A lead, B follow. This is about trust and about opening to your senses other than sight. Five (or 10) minutes each way. Person A, a few times in the course of the blind walk, when you see something that you want to share with your partner, position them so (model this), move their head into position and then squeeze their shoulder. Person B, when you're shoulder is squeezed, open your eyes for just a second, like a camera and take in what person A is sharing with you.