True Nature Society

Programs: Youth / customized programming: our youth programs weave science, economics, nature awareness, and social dynamics into a holistic training program that empowers students to create meaningful change in the world. The synergy of practical and life skills equips participants with the tools and wisdom to enhance personal, ecological and community health. Quail springs emphasizes experiential and outdoor learning: through farm immersion and nature connection, students observe and practice all aspects of food production, from tending and gathering fodder for dairy goats and preparing milk for cheese, yogurt and buttermilk, to learning about life cycles, the food chain, and the importance of the millions of microorganisms that support healthy systems. Planting garden beds, harvesting fresh ingredients for meals or food preservation, or nourishing and building soil with compost, students gain a deep awareness and appreciation for all that goes into our food supply. They also get to know the wild plants, animals, birds and landscape of the unique desert canyon through guided wanders with our knowledgeable staff. Stories, games and activities are utilized to empower, inspire, challenge and provide the opportunity to engage more deeply with themselves and the group. In other service learning projects, students get their hands in the mud to build earthen benches or new animal structures. These youth programs offered 16,554 direct program service hours serving a total of 216 people.

ecological and cultural restoration: the ecological & cultural restoration programs include attention to and tending of culturally appropriate and ecologically important species for site-specific agro-ecology, restoration, and agroforestry. We are working to address the challenges of climate change through eco-cultural restoration and ecosystem-based adaptation. Our approach to restoration ecology embraces the natural world that reestablishes the relationship between culture and nature. We are working to restore the watershed upon which we sit, including the regeneration of the natural spring water, and restoration of the perennial riparian habitat to attract wildlife and restore balance in the ecosystem. Cultural restoration also occurs through our courses which offer in-depth education in earth-based skills and crafts. Our teachers are artisans, naturalists, musicians, storytellers, villagers and stewards. We share the love of creating beauty through a reciprocal relationship with the natural world and combine hands-on experience with historical, ecological and cultural understanding. Since quail springs' beginning in 2004, this approach has been a foundation of all of our programs and our culture. These eco-cultural restoration programs offered 4,422 direct program service hours serving a total of 67 people.

permaculture design: permaculture is a design science utilizing an innovative systems-approach to consciously design landscapes, human settlements and farming systems that integrate biological diversity and fertility by mimicking natural eco-systems. Diverse and fertile systems are more resilient in the face of disturbances. The protractive and thoughtful nature of permaculture encourages using the outputs of one system as the inputs for another and strongly emphasizes the mechanisms for feedback and progressively adaptive designs. In permaculture, sustainability is defined as a system that produces and stores more energy than is required to maintain & replicate itself, notably banking on today's sunlight, not on fossil fuels. Quail springs permaculture programs have an emphasis on hands-on projects including a practical design project that is site and context specific and integrates all of the different elements of a thorough permaculture design. These permaculture design courses are certified by the permaculture research institute and are presented as a 72-hour curriculum taken from the permaculture designer's manual authored by founder bill mollison. These permaculture programs offered 12,144 direct program service hours serving a total of 103 people.