Sara Weaner Cooper

Students often struggle to see how classroom learning connects to real-world careers and challenges.

This session introduces "The Living Curriculum" - an integrative framework that breaks down subject silos and roots learning in place: native plants, local ecosystems, and community land practices. Weaving together ecology, biology, math, social studies, and the arts, the curriculum shows students how human and natural systems intertwine - and where they fit in. Drawing on 15 years of work with educators, designers, ethnobiologists, and community leaders, Sara shares a real case: high schoolers who created landscape design plans and pitched them to industry professionals. She'll close with a hands-on demo, inviting the audience to review a sample student project as the "professional panel."

The takeaway: when we teach holistically, students find real agency - and a real stake - in shaping the world around them.

FREE SESSION

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Photo by Max Touhey

Larry Weaner, FAPLD

Even on the smallest residential property, sharing garden decisions with nature changes everything. In this eye opening presentation, Larry will illustrate how an ecology-based, brains-over-brawn approach to home landscaping can reduce management needs, increase desirable wildlife habitat, and enhance the visual and intellectual experience of being in your yard.

FREE SESSION

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Larry Weaner, FAPLD & Sara Weaner Cooper

No chemicals, no smothering, no scraping and hauling, no early-stage ugly phase. 

Sounds too good to be true.

Yet by gradually applying a series of light-touch actions, you can achieve this transition organically without breaking your back, sparking ecological angst, or infuriating your neighbors. These actions can include strategic plant selection, timed mowing, selective height cutting, pH manipulation, organic herbicide application, and a phased planting approach. In our first session, Larry will illustrate case studies that exemplify the technical underpinnings behind this approach from a landscape designer's perspective. Next, Sara will discuss her lawn to meadow conversion from a homeowner’s perspective. Her meadow, now in its fourth growing season, has been featured in the The New York Times (2024) and the BBC (2025). Together, they will illustrate how the experience of meadow making can be transformed from daunting to uplifting.  

Category: Home Gardener

Fee: $38

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