Land Listeners Training Program
This is a train-the-trainers program for people who want to lead soil health and watershed function monitoring and restoration projects in their communities. This program helps farmers, students, conservation groups, policy makers, and others see, monitor, and map changes in whole systems landscape function. By doing this, we aim to increase participation in the joyful work of regenerating fertile soil, clean water, and thriving local economies.
The program is based on the Understanding Soil Health and Watershed Function manual, as well as the Soil Carbon Coalition's participatory online map database and Atlas of Biological Work (https://atlasbiowork.com). We are aiming for a different kind of science, which allows everyday people to see and investigate the impact of human management on living systems and ecosystem services. Our goal is to ask better questions, and get more people involved in asking and answering those questions.
We are already receiving more requests for land monitoring, workshops, talks, and
school residencies than we can currently fulfill. So we’ve decided to create a team of
“Land Listeners” in each region who can guide others through a learning process.
In the workshop we show ways to engage communities in monitoring, so that individuals and regions may:
We will cover:
Through these workshops we aim to create a “community of practice”— a working group of closely-connected people in a region, with a shared set of skills, and an interest in continuing to learn together.
The program is based on the Understanding Soil Health and Watershed Function manual, as well as the Soil Carbon Coalition's participatory online map database and Atlas of Biological Work (https://atlasbiowork.com). We are aiming for a different kind of science, which allows everyday people to see and investigate the impact of human management on living systems and ecosystem services. Our goal is to ask better questions, and get more people involved in asking and answering those questions.
We are already receiving more requests for land monitoring, workshops, talks, and
school residencies than we can currently fulfill. So we’ve decided to create a team of
“Land Listeners” in each region who can guide others through a learning process.
In the workshop we show ways to engage communities in monitoring, so that individuals and regions may:
- track how choices in land management create change over time in soil health and watershed function
- evaluate policies and programs
- learn which land managers are doing effective restoration work that can serve as a model for others seeking to take charge of their local watershed health.
We will cover:
- Connections between soil microbiology, carbon flows, and water flows, and their impact on public health, local economies, watershed health, and climate resilience
- Soil health principles
- Hands-on skills for mapping and monitoring changes over time in soil health and watershed function
- Group facilitation skills to maximize participation, connection, and learning
Through these workshops we aim to create a “community of practice”— a working group of closely-connected people in a region, with a shared set of skills, and an interest in continuing to learn together.