Workshop Themes Offered by the Environmental Youth Alliance
Interested in hosting a workshop related to food production, soil ecology, local pollinators, or food security? The EYA has a long history of offering community groups place, age and community specific presentations on the following topics. For notes on fees for these workshops please see bottom of page.
Control What You Eat! The Politics of Food
1 hour INDOOR workshop
Discuss the political, social and ecological ramifications of our modern industrial food system. Learn about how the food we eat effects climate instability, worker rights, biological diversity, and human health. Explore alternatives to the agribusiness model of food production, discuss actions we can take individually and as a community to create a food sovereign community, and empower ourselves to take the first steps towards creating a sustainable community.
To Dig or Not to Dig, Soil Health is the Question
2 Hour OUTDOOR Workshop ($30 extra for workshop materials)
Learn how to improve your food garden's fertility through organic approaches that support the intricate ecological communities that define true soil health. Begin to understand the many relationships that exist between plants and soil organisms, learn how healthy soil is created and begin to devise a year long maintenance plan for your garden that will maximize yields with a minimum amount of energy and material input.
Growing Food With a Black Thumb
2 hour INDOOR or OUTDOOR workshop
This workshop touches upon important things to know about backyard gardening and is intended for beginner gardeners. The overview will include: how to improve soil fertility, when to plant what and where different herbs and vegetables like to be situated in the garden.
Gardening Without a Garden
2 hour INDOOR workshop ($30 extra for workshop materials)
Learn what food plants grow best in containers. Talk about easy and cheap pots and soil mediums anyone can use to grow healthy, organic vegetables and herbs on a windowsill or apartment patio. Fill a planter with soil and seed to take home and grow yourself!
Creating a Pollinators Paradise
1-2 hour INDOOR workshop
Learn all about the most efficient pollinator in Vancouver, the blue orchard mason bee. Build simple homes to attract these solitary, non-aggressive insects to take up residence in your garden. Talk about some issues effecting bee populations in the Pacific Northwest and learn how you can help one of the most efficient pollinators in BC.
What Stinks? The Dirt on Urban Composting
1 hour INDOOR workshop or 2 hour OUTDOOR workshop
Learn how to create healthy compost piles, easily. Discover the different organisms that influence decomposition in a healthy and unhealthy compost pile. Troubleshoot common problems in composting. Find the best system for your situation and become empowered to turn your organic wastes into black gold!
A Jungle of Food in the Urban Food Forest
2 hour OUTDOOR workshop
Discover the unique systems perspective known as permaculture. Begin to understand how ecological communities function and learn how designers have taken insight from natural systems to design perennial food forests that yield a variety of food, fibre and medicines for human use while requiring a minimum of external energy inputs. An enlightening approach to design that has ramifications from small plot garden layouts to whole city planning.
Seed Starting, Simply
2 hour INDOOR workshop ($30 extra for workshop materials)
Learn different methods of plant propagation to fit different spaces. Find out the best soil mediums to use to start different plants and learn what plants get started at what time through the year. Everything you need to know to start your garden from seed.
Natural Medicine in the City
2 hour OUTDOOR workshop
We are surrounded by thousands of plants, many of which have powerful healing properties. From basic food plants to potent medicinals, understand how you can use common plants to improve many health conditions. Use gentle plant medicines to create salves, tinctures and lotions.
Native Plants Know
2 hour OUTDOOR workshop
10,000 years ago, melting glaciers revealed the mountains, valleys and rivers of South Western British Columbia. Since then, plants have been adapting with animals in a unique symbiosis woven from the regions unique climate. Learn the wonders of these regionally adapted plants and find out more about where to plant them and why you might want to.
Wriggly Worms
1 hour INDOOR or OUTDOOR workshop
Suitable for 3-5 year olds
Captivate your little ones with the wonderful world of wriggly worms. Your preschoolers will first be introduced to the important work that worms do underground through a circle-time story. They’ll then have the chance to play at being “wormologists” where they’ll inspect a worm bin (vermicomposter) and have a chance to examine the worms up-close. Children will come away with an appreciation of our soil-helpers and an understanding of how to care for a worm bin.
The EYA offers these workshops to interested community groups whenever sufficient organizational capacity allows. If you are interested in hosting a workshop, please contact
The EYA offers these workshops to interested community groups for a fee of $100/hour. Some workshops have additional material costs associated with their delivery. We strive to make our services accessible to all; please contact us via email or phone to discuss delivery of workshops at reduced rates.
604 689 4446
