While permaculture practitioners anecdotally understand the value permaculture can have in children’s lives, this field has yet to formalize and quantify its potential impact on a larger societal scale. This presentation seeks to demonstrate how this can be done. We will be discussing the Future City Competition, which engages over 40,000 students from the United States, and is currently going global. In this competition, students engage in designing cities of the future, and 2015’s competition specifically focused on urban agriculture.

Interior to this competition is a complicated sociology about exposing 10-14 year old students to the gravity of global problems, while empowering them to generate a meaningful solution. Unquestionably, the judging panel – some of them well-known experts in their fields – was amazed by the sophistication of the students’ work.  

Therefore, this presentation seeks to work on two levels: First, how can permaculture permeate the fabric of the educational system? In addition, it will suggest that we are doing a disservice to our students by not engaging them at a higher level.