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Undergraduate Degree

Ecological Management of Turf, Landscape, and Urban Horticulture

The turf, landscape, and urban horticulture industries are large and diverse, offering careers in golf course and athletic field management; landscape design, construction, management, and ecological restoration; conservation; park, botanical, and public garden management; urban horticulture and forestry policy and management; research; and consulting.

Courses

HORT 285, PERMACULTURE DESIGN AND THEORY: CERTIFICATE COURSE, 4 Credits

Permaculture design course meets internationally recognized standards for certification. Lectures, hands-on activities, experiential learning, group discussions, readings, student projects and presentations. Two mandatory weekend days. Design intensive, utilizing graphic and verbal presentation skills. Research into other functioning permaculture systems through literature, websites, and as observed on field trips. Lec/lab.

This course is repeatable for 8 credits.

HORT 286, PERMACULTURE WATER MANAGEMENT, 4 Credits

Teaches assessment, mapping, and site designs for installing water retention landscapes using integrated water management strategies. Introduces assessment and analysis of rainwater runoff patterns and calculation of runoff quantities and water usage amounts. Teaches principles of water harvesting used to create functional site designs. Examines rainwater harvesting systems case study designs and teaches to identify both water and solar site resources. Creates an integrated permaculture site design based on design principles, water flow and quantity analysis, and overall site condition assessment. Covers rainwater harvesting cisterns, water harvesting earthworks, their integration with greywater treatment, passive solar design, and planning for vegetation.

HORT 485, ADVANCED PERMACULTURE DESIGN TOOLS FOR CLIMATE RESILIENCE, 3 Credits

Understand how permaculture as a design system can create sustainable human habitation that is beneficial to the natural world. Use tools specific to permaculture designers to assess, analyze, and project future climate scenarios and respond to them with appropriate design. Climate analogue identification and climate change forecasting provide the basis for a student assessment project that addresses current and future climatic conditions. Assessment and mapping assignments utilize Google Earth Pro, Google Docs, and Google Sheets.

Prerequisite: HORT 285 with B or better

Available via Ecampus

Open Online Courses

Intro to Permaculture

Oregon State University is providing free access to the knowledge and tools needed to help combat climate change and other world issues in a massive open online course, or MOOC, on sustainable landscape design.

The four-week course, Intro to Permaculture, is a public education project that will enable students worldwide to learn about and design sustainable landscapes and ecosystems in a highly interactive way. The practical use of permaculture design techniques makes the course information easily applicable to a person's life. The first class began May 2, 2016. Registration is now open for an additional offering of the course.

Online Courses