What is Green Apprenticeship?
The Green Apprenticeship (GA) trains participants to understand and create alternative solutions for the issues facing the modern world. Our 7-week core program incorporates the following subjects, taught through both theoretical and practical instruction:
Making mud with a smile
- Local food production
- Permaculture
- Ecological design techniques
- Natural/alternative building
- Sustainable technologies – composting toilets, grey and black water purification systems, solar ovens, geodesic domes
- Community Design
- Environmental ethics
Practical work includes:
- Organic gardening – growing vegetables from scratch
- Natural and alternative building with mud, straw bales, tires, and trash
- Composting – with food scraps and with the help of worms (vermiculture)
- Permaculture design projects – ecological design from the garden and home to the workplace
- Care of EcoCampus neighborhood – maintenance and development
- Countless opportunities for individual or group eco-projects
Eating together
- Hebrew language ulpan
- Culture and history of the land of Israel
- Educational trips to other areas of the country
- Connections to community members through participation in kibbutz vocations
- Volunteering in the wider Israeli community
- *Some applicants will be eligible for MASA scholarships
Want college credit? Read about our unconventional study abroad program.
In all our programs, practical skills are developed through hands-on work in our environmental education center, organic garden, and alternative/natural building projects, and complemented by classroom sessions in such topics as ecological design, permaculture, gardening theory, and community building. Visit our You Tube channel to find out more.
Participants are also interwoven into the daily life of our kibbutz, an intentional cooperative community based on the principles of liberal, egalitarian Judaism. Click here to read more about the kibbutz.
Yoshi on Moadome with amazing sky
Students also have the opportunity to live what they learn on a day-to-day basis by staying in the GA eco-campus – a prototype neighborhood for sustainable living. Click here for more information.
Additionally, participants come from all over the world to be with like-minded individuals and create life-long connections. They leave the course brimming with information, motivation, confidence and support, and become part of the larger community of those who value ecological living.
Click here to see a sample schedule of a typical week during the course.
Upon successful completion of the course work, participants will receive a Permaculture Design Course Certificate according to International Permaculture standards, as well as an Eco-village Design certificate, in accordance with Gaia Education Curriculum.
Graduates of the Green Apprenticeship integrate the skills they learn into Masters and PhD degrees in ecological subjects and as formal and informal educators. Other professional endeavors include: establishing and directing environmental NGO’s, creating a permaculture education farm, entrepreneurial efforts in the organic food industry and landscape architecture, becoming experts in natural building and carpentry, doing agricultural work in farms all over the world, and much more.
Green Apprenticeship alumni also take the knowledge they learn outside the ecological community, as the information helps develop a way of approaching systems in any field.
Read what past participants have said about the Green Apprenticeship course.
Click here for information on program dates, fees, and how to apply.