Learning about permaculture and peacemaking is now only a college class away.

From Sept. 3 to 18, D-Q University, a 640-acre Native American college on the outskirts of Davis, will be hosting a class to teach participants how to live a sustainable and peaceful lifestyle with nature and people.

“It’s an all star cast of instructors for this course,” said Penny Livingston-Stark, an internationally-recognized permaculture teacher. “It’s over the top. It’s a pretty epic time for this place.”

Permaculture is a way of designing human communities and agricultural systems that mimics relationships found in nature. It designs sustainable settlements and often uses the same principles found in nature to maximize efficiency and minimize work.

Working with the D-Q University, the Regenerative Design Institute will teach 70 participants with a dozen instructors, both non-Native American and Native American, how to live cooperatively with nature.

Throughout the two-week course, participants will be allowed camping accommodations on the grounds and will be served organic meals. At the end of the course, everyone will have to complete a design project and will be given certification for permaculture.

“The health and balance of the land comes from people … which will be focused on a lot of this course.” Livingston-Stark said. “To move forward and come to terms with history.”

Livingston-Stark, who recently taught a permaculture design training course in the Virgin Islands, finds that living a regenerative instead of a destructive lifestyle is a science rooted in permaculture design.

“It’s the reason why I committed myself to this work [with permaculture], because it’s the most powerful tool to pull us out of this ecological tail spin we’re in,” Livingston-Stark said.

The permaculture instructors come from all over California and are all actively involved with permaculture designs in their work and personal lives.

“It’s not just a hobby for these people,” Livingston-Stark said. “They’re practicing what they’re preaching.”

Permaculture Instructor David Ortiz helped write California laws implementing rain and grey water technologies. He will be teaching sustainable water technologies for the course.

“We don’t have to live outside American comforts to make our houses water sustainable,” Ortiz said. “I live it. Every time I take a shower, do my laundry, water my lawn.”

Ortiz, who is a Native American Blackfoot, will also be sharing Native American music and dance during the evenings.

“There will be a lot going on … and a lot of different styles of learning,” Ortiz said.

Another instructor, Jon Young, pioneered a blend of Native American mentoring and modern ecological field techniques. He will be guiding participants to a deeper connection to nature.

“Paying attention to nature, operating on all levels of your being … will help you in the permaculture process,” Young said.

But for many of the instructors, this course is more than just teaching about permaculture. It is also about restoring peace among community members and revitalizing D-Q University.

Founded in 1971, the university is the only indigenous-controlled institution of higher learning located outside a reservation, according to DavisWiki.

The university offers a variety of courses from agroforesty and food system development to sustainable community development, in addition to their special two-week permaculture course.

“There are a lot of people who believe in a positive future for this institution,” Young said.

To kick-start the course, Jake Swamp, a former Mohawk Sub-Chief and Native American rights activist, and his wife, Judy Swamp, will also be teaching as honorary guests.

“My work at D-Q University will address our disconnection from the natural world and from each other,” Jake said in a press release.

For more information about the course, contact the Regenerative Design Institute at (415) 868-9681.

JESSY WEI can be reached at features@theaggie.org.

WEDNESDAY

Poetry Night Reading Series: Danny Romero

8 p.m.

Bistro 33, 226 F St.

Listen to Danny Romero read his award-winning poetry.

THURSDAY

Meat Lab Sale

1 to 5:30 p.m.

Cole C Facility

The UC Davis Meat Lab is offering sales that are open to the public. Cash and check only.

Fire University

9 p.m. to midnight

E St. Plaza

Learn how to fire-dance with the local fire-dancing community for free.

FRIDAY

Folk Music Jam Session

Noon

Wyatt Deck, Old Davis Road

Pull out your fiddles, guitars and mandolins for an informal jam session in the Arboretum.

Meat Lab Sale

1 to 5:30 p.m.

Cole C Facility

The UC Davis Meat Lab is offering sales that are open to the public. Cash and check only.

To receive placement in the AGGIE DAILY CALENDAR, e-mail dailycal@theaggie.org or stop by 25 Lower Freeborn by noon the day prior to your event. Due to space constraints, all event descriptions are subject to editing, and priority will be given to events that are free of charge and geared toward the campus community.

Malaria is the cause for nearly one million deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization’s web site.

However, Anna Drexler hopes that will change in time due to her research.

A UC Davis entomology doctorate student, Drexler is a co-author of a recently published article in PLoS Pathogens for her research about malaria-resistant mosquitoes. She’s also a recipient of a National Institute of Health (NIH) research fellowship for her research into these mosquitoes.

The article has already gained international attention and has been featured on BBC and ABC, according to the entomology department’s web site.

The California Aggie interviewed Drexler over the phone about her research and the possible future applications.

1. How did all this research with the mosquitoes get started?

We had a joint grant from the University of Georgia. It was collaboration with the University of Arizona to study the effects of insulin signaling in mosquitoes in malaria infections. We infect the mosquitoes here on campus. It’s quite a process. Not very many labs in the country maintain these parasite infections. We are actually using mosquitoes that infect humans.

2. How many mosquitoes are you working with?

We have a mosquito colony. So they are made in the Arizona lab and maintained at the UCD lab. We made transgenic mosquitoes, those made resistant to parasite infection, that have eyes that glow red so we can identify them. Essentially we breed these mosquitoes to other non-transgenic mosquitoes. We feed them a special diet modified off of fish food and continually maintain their life cycle. We have maybe 10,000 total in the colony cage.

3. So, when you infect these mosquitoes, you infect them with malaria?

It’s a parasite strain that causes the most severe form of malaria. There are five different strains that affect humans. The one we work with is prevalent across Africa but particularly Sub-Saharan Africa.

4. How prevalent is this strain?

I think most recent estimates are 300 to 500 million cases every year. Most of these cases are children under five years old. And there are more than one million deaths every year. The way that this disease impacts people’s daily lives is incredible.

5. What are the general symptoms of malaria?

Well, that’s more of the clinical end. But the general symptoms are extremely high recurrent fevers, general malaise, shakes, damage to the liver and anemia. It impairs cognitive function and death. But it’s really characterized by high fevers. But in our lab we work on the mosquito end [to see] whether there’s a way to interrupt the transmission [of malaria to other mosquitoes].

6. Were you and the other researchers expecting the results, which successfully showed the interruption of the malaria transmission at the onset of this experiment?

It was kind of a surprise. We predicted that the opposite would happen. We initially started looking at this [insulin signaling] pathway. We said, ‘okay we’re going to modify this pathway and make these mosquitoes live for a shorter time period and affect the ability to transmit.’ But when we started doing initial tests [the mosquitoes] had no infections at all. The next generation could not be infected at all.

7. What were your reactions to these results?

I actually didn’t believe [the results] at first. I thought maybe something’s wrong with this experiment. So we repeated it a lot of times… now the question is why are [the mosquitoes] resistant?

8. What are the implications for future research?

Well, it’s the first time that anyone’s ever made mosquitoes immune to malaria infections so there are many places to go from that. To really understand the processes involved is the next step. It’s unclear now whether we can release these mosquitoes into the field but [the research] is a step in the right direction. [We may be able to] bring about research into new drugs or pesticide that help interrupt malaria transmission.

9. What do you think about how much attention the research is garnering internationally?

I feel really lucky to be a part of this work. There were a number of people who contributed. Just being part of this team is incredible. I feel really lucky and really proud that the work is getting out there and recognized and that other researchers can use this as a jumping point.

10. In what directions will you take your research with the NIH research fellowship?

I’m going to continue to work in this field. I believe that malaria is a very important disease to be working on right now. I really enjoy working in the Luckhart lab that is doing phenomenal work on insect transmission. I hope that it makes a difference.

JESSY WEI can be reached at features@theaggie.org.

THURSDAY

Meat Lab Sale

1 to 5:30 p.m.

Cole C Facility

The UC Davis Meat Lab is offering sales that are open to the public. Cash and check only.

Fire University

9 p.m. to midnight

E St. Plaza

Learn how to fire-dance with the local fire-dancing community for free.

FRIDAY

Meat Lab Sale

1 to 5:30 p.m.

Cole C Facility

The UC Davis Meat Lab is offering sales that are open to the public. Cash and check only.

To receive placement in the AGGIE DAILY CALENDAR, e-mail dailycal@theaggie.org or stop by 25 Lower Freeborn by noon the day prior to your event. Due to space constraints, all event descriptions are subject to editing, and priority will be given to events that are free of charge and geared toward the campus community.

Bees often get a bad rap at picnics and barbeques, but at the new Honey Bee Haven Garden, the bees are the main attraction.

On Saturday, Sept. 11, the garden will celebrate its one-year anniversary with a kid-friendly festival from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. full of crafts for kids, free Häagen-Dazs Honey Vanilla ice cream and talks by members of UC Davis’s department of entomology.

Located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, the credit for the half-acre garden’s creation goes to a rather sweet source.

Häagen-Dazs Ice Cream donated $125,000 to the department of entomology to build the garden as a center for education, research and as a year-round food source for local bees.

Häagen-Dazs decided to fund the garden as part of their Help the Honey Bees campaign – an initiative to help fight the mysterious disappearance of many honey bee colonies known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Now, the Honey Bee Haven provides pollen and nectar for many species of honey and native bees, even during Davis’ hot summer months.

Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor for the department of entomology, has seen firsthand the integral role the garden has played in improving the diversity of bees in the area. He began collecting data on local bees in March of 2009, when the garden was nothing more than an empty field.

Where there used to be few bees using the area to feed, Thorp’s data has shown an increased number of bees visiting the now flowering garden.

“They still need more pollen and nectar resources, but it’s a start,” Thorp said. “There are quite a few honey bee colonies using the plants.”

To build publicity, Häagen-Dazs and UC Davis held a competition to determine the garden’s overall design. The contestants were given design parameters and a list of suggested plants that would do well in Davis’ Mediterranean climate.

The winning design was conceived of by a group of four landscape architects and exhibit developers based in Sausalito, California. Curvy paths lead visitors to areas such as the Pollinator Patch and Orchard Alley, while graphic panels explain bees’ role in food production.

“As far as plants go, it offered wonderful diversity of plants that’ll provide pollen and nectar in all of the months they’re active,” said Melissa Borel, program manager at the UC Davis California Center for Urban Horticulture. “The designers had to make sure they had something blooming from very late in the winter when the bees start coming out of the hive to collect, to all the way through to the beginning of winter. And they did an exceptional job of that.”

Jessica Brainard, one of the designers, described the garden’s concept as telling the story of how important bees are to agriculture and plant health.

“I did research about bees and then brought it to the team and we brainstormed – how do you turn that into a physical space and then how do you select the right planting set for that,” Brainard said. “The story itself and the way the gardens are organized help in terms of if they have education programs there – the design of the garden facilitates [education] because it’s organized into sub-gardens that each tell a story.”

Since its relatively short-lived creation, the plants have yet to fully mature. However, Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum of Entomology, said that the garden will be an exciting new space for anyone to spend an afternoon.

“It’s a beautiful place to be and relax. It’s a place people can gather and spend time and for children and adults to explore the plants and notice what bees are buzzing around and pollinating the plants,” Yang said. 

Teaching visitors about the crucial role bees play in helping plants grow and produce fruits and vegetables is a goal of the Haven. Watermelon, artichoke, basil and mint plants provide a living display of the bees at work.

“People can go out there and see bees pollinating flowers, and what it results in is the fruit or vegetable that we’ll later eat,” Borel said. “Without the honeybee we wouldn’t have the fruits and vegetables that we enjoy today in the quantity and at the price that we want them.”

Students and insect-enthusiasts have already embraced the garden as a welcome addition to the UC Davis campus.

“I’ve heard from a lot of teachers who are planning field trips and are really excited about this garden opening up, because it gives them another place to visit when they’re visiting UC Davis,” Yang said. “It’s a great way of highlighting the research that goes on at UC Davis in a very positive way and it’s a great place for people to learn.”

To learn more about the bee-buzzing event or for more information, visit http://beebiology.ucdavis.edu/HAVEN/index.html.

ERIN MIGDOL can be reached at features@theaggie.org.