For over 20 years Sunrise Ecological Education & Design Services (SEEDS) has been developing school and community gardens and land restoration projects together with students and staff at several schools and community centers on the Navajo Reservation in Window Rock, Saint Michaels and Fort Defiance, Arizona and other nearby communities.
SEEDS’s areas of focus are:
- Gardening programs for all grades, preschool to college level, reconnecting students with ancestral foods to improve nutrition and health.
- Training programs and projects for school and community garden management, ecosystem revitalization, permaculture design, land restoration and ecological living.
- Environmental science and applied ecology curriculum emphasizing humanity’s integral relationship to our planet and how the cultural wisdom of indigenous people can help bring this relationship into harmony and balance.
- Therapeutic gardens, nature trails and outdoor spaces for reflection and emotional, psychological and spiritual connection/healing.
- Waste reduction and eventual elimination of waste through increasing awareness of our patterns of consumption and options for changing those patterns.
- Design studio for the development and production of items pertaining to gardening, ecological living and affordable passive solar housing emphasizing the use of recycled, renewable and locally sourced materials.
Joe Pacal
Joe Pacal has more than 40 years of experience in small scale organic agriculture, permaculture design and education from Hawaii to Colorado and northeast Arizona. For the past 22 years, Pacal has worked and lived on the Navajo Reservation to develop school and community garden programs. He has designed and implemented vocational programs for Native students with developmental challenges and has taught high school level courses in environmental science and applied ecology.
Sunrise Ecological Education & Design Services 