Pre-conference in-depth workshops took place Wednesday, April 28, 2010. Note workshop time and location. Separate registration required (not included with your Conference and Marketplace Pass).

LEED Core Concepts and Strategies Workshop instructor: Brian Dunbar
wednesday, april 28
check in at 7:30am, workshop from 8:00am-4:00pm
museum of visual materials (550 north main avenue)

Brian Dunbar is executive director of the Institute for the Built Environment (IBE) and professor of Construction Management at Colorado State University. Brian’s teaching, research, and project work focuses on environmentally sustsainable design and construction materials, methods, and systems. Professor Dunbar coordinates the graduate emphasis in sustainable building at Colorado State and has developed university and profesional courses on green building, including annual courses on St. John, USVI.

LEED Core Concepts and Strategies Workshop is intended for anyone who wants more than a basic understanding of LEED – including those with a stake in their company’s or community’s building practices, those directly involved in green building projects, and those pursuing GBCI’s LEED Green Associate credential.

The workshop provides essential knowledge of sustainable building concepts that are fundamental to all LEED Rating Systems. It begins with an introduction to the benefits and integrative approach to green building, and a brief background on the U.S. Green Building Council and LEED, including basics of the building certification process. The core of the workshop presents LEED intents and concepts at the credit category level – across building types and rating systems – touching on strategies, synergies, and specific examples that are reinforced by real project cases. Key LEED metrics and LEED referenced standards are addressed throughout the workshop. Interactive activities within the course keep you engaged and reinforce what you’ve learned.

This course provides the foundation required for any 300-level LEED education offering.

Your registration includes:

• Instruction from official USGBC Faculty who are experts in LEED and trained in facilitation and adult learning techniques
• Participant workbook, which includes interactive learning activities based on real LEED projects and a glossary of key green building definitions
• Continuing education for 7 hours of instruction directly reported to AIA and CSI; certificate of completion for self-reporting to other professional organizations
• Lunch and refreshment breaks
• Upon completion of a post-workshop survey, access to additional supplementary resources

This course, like all USGBC LEED education programs, meets GBCI eligibility requirements for the LEED Green Associate.

Register here for LEED Core Concepts and Strageies (cost is $325 for USGBC Members and $390 for Non-Members. Includes learning materials).

LEED Core Concepts Workshop Flyer

Please note that this workshop is a separate event and is not included with your Plain Green conference registration. To register:

1. First, click here to visit US Green Building Council’s site.
2. Then select “Core Concepts and Strategies”
3. Click “Search”
4. Finally, scroll down and select Sioux Falls and register

Designing a Home-scale Food Forest instructor: Karl Schmidt
wednesday, april 28
check in at 8:00am, workshop from 8:30am-4:00pm
washington pavilion, classroom 313 (321 south main avenue, third floor)

Karl J. Schmidt is founder of Glacial Lakes Permaculture, an educational non-profit based in Estelline, South Dakota. He received his training in permaculture, a design system for ecological and sustainable living, in Australia from Bill Mollison, the co-founder of the permaculture concept. He has also done permaculture training in Brazil. Karl has a particular interest in cold climate food forest design, and during Plain Green 08 won the Grand Prize in the Plain Action category of the ‘Do You Dream in Green?’ design competition for his half-acre food forest design for the northern plains. Nights and weekends he is a practicing permaculturist and an SDSU Extension Master Gardener; in the recent past, Karl has collaborated with other local permaculturists in offering ‘town talks’ and weekend workshops. By day, Karl is director of international affairs at SDSU where, among other efforts, he oversees the university’s many exchange and study abroad programs. He is an experienced classroom teacher, having taught at the university-level for 20 years; he recently taught a course entitled ‘Global Environmental Issues’ at SDSU and is working on developing additional sustainability-related study abroad opportunities for students at the university. One such international project involves collaborating with the ICPPC-Ecocenter in Stryszów, Poland in developing student service-learning opportunities.

Designing a Home-Scale Food Forest will provide an introduction to permaculture, a design system for ecological and sustainable living, as well as the steps needed to design, create and maintain a home-scale food forest in the northern plains.  Participants are encouraged to bring details of their own properties for help in determining what the possibilities might be for their own food forest design.

A food forest, also known as a forest or woodland garden, is an edible, multi-layered woodland landscape, based on fruit- and nut-producing trees and shrubs, as well as perennial and annual vegetables and flowers.  While its main purpose is to provide for human food needs, a food forest also serves as a wildlife habitat, forage for bees and butterflies, as a carbon sink, and as a source of beauty and natural inspiration.  Food forests can be the size of an urban backyard, a suburban lot, or even larger.

Register here for Designing a Home-Scale Food Forest (cost is $65 and includes learning materials).

Protecting Open Space Networks Through Conservation Design & Traditional Neighborhoods instructor: Randall Arendt
sponsored by south dakota planners association
wednesday, april 28
check in at 7:30am, workshop from 8:00am-11:30am
washington pavilion, schulte room (321 south main avenue, first floor)

Randall Arendt is a landscape planner, site designer, author, lecturer, and an advocate of “conservation planning”. He authored Rural by Design: Maintaining Small Town Character, recommended by the American Planning Association for “The Essential Planning Library.” He is the country’s most sought-after speaker on the topic of creative development design as a conservation tool.  In recent years he has been featured as a key speaker at national conferences sponsored by the American Planning Association, the Urban land Institute, the American Farmland Trust, and the American Society of Landscape Architects. Randall has designed “conservation subdivisions” for a wide variety of clients in 21 states. His site designs have been featured in publications of the American Planning Association. Arendt’s designs are “twice green” because they succeed both environmentally and economically.

Protecting Open Space Networks through Conservation Design & Traditional Neighborhoods describes a practical and highly effective regulatory approach enabling municipalities to preserve resources and protect interconnected networks of permanent conservation lands, in a virtually cost-free way avoiding contentious down-zoning and “takings” issues.

The program begins by illustrating conservation design example at various densities and price-points, followed by a hands-on design exercise demonstrating how straight-forward this approach is. Participants will learn exactly how conservation subdivisions are designed, mastering a proven four-step design process, through a participatory hands-on design exercise, where the learning curve rises steeply.

The session ends with a detailed discussion explaining how plans and ordinances can be updated to include practical, effective language to implement this approach.  Participants will learn precisely what aspects of the municipal regulatory process need to be changed and what legal wording is needed, in Comprehensive Plans, Subdivision Regulations, and Zoning Ordinances. Emphasis will be placed on creating a more productive PROCESS, including site analyses, site walks, concept plans, and a design methodology grounded in land conservation objectives. Model ordinance language will be provided, upon request, to all participants, in electronic form.

The workshop includes a hand-on participatory design exercise.

Register here for Conservation Design (cost is $45 and includes learning materials).

Transforming Highway Commercial Strips into Mixed-Use Corridors instructor: Randall Arendt
sponsored by south dakota planners association
wednesday, april 28
check in at 12:00pm, workshop from 12:30pm-4:00pm
washington pavilion, schulte room (321 south main avenue, first floor)

Transforming Highway Commercial Strips into Mixed-Use Corridors illustrates best practices from successful projects around the country where practical, proven techniques were used to redevelop dysfunctional highway strips into vibrant mixed-use corridors, creating opportunities for new land-use patterns conducive to public transit ridership, economic development, and a variety of housing price-points.

This workshop addresses:

• Integrating mass transit
• Creating connections among internal streets, parking, and walkways, facilitating safe circulation/linkages
• Establishing height standards, encouraging vertical integration of compatible mixed uses.
• Providing opportunities for workforce and market-rate housing
• Managing stormwater for groundwater infiltration/recharge
• Calming traffic with landscaped medians, roundabouts
• Planting shade trees extensively along highways and within development areas for improved aesthetics, air quality and heat-island reduction
• Setting maximum building setbacks
• Designing around natural and historic features
• Requiring that outdoor lighting respect dark-sky principles

This session shows how to blend the twin disciplines of Conservation Design and New Urbanism, and includes the Fundamentals of Form-Based Zoning and Low Impact Development strategies to reduce the negative effects of new construction, particularly involving stormwater infiltration. An optional hands-on design exercise is also offered, providing participants an opportunity to apply lessons learned to a specific situation.

Register here for Transforming Highway Commercial Strips (cost is $45 and includes learning materials).

Randall Arendt Workshop Combo
get both Protecting Open Space Through Conservation Design and Transforming Highway Commercial Strips for $75
wednesday, april 28
check in at 7:30am, workshops from 8:00am-11:30am and 12:30pm-4:00pm
washington pavilion, schulte room (321 south main avenue, first floor)

Two great workshops by renowned presenter Randall Arendt at one special price! Attend both half-day workshops, Protecting Open Space Through Conservation Design and Transforming Highway Commercial Strips (see workshop descriptions above) at one site.

Register here for Randall Arendt Workshop Combo (cost is $75 and includes both workshops and learning materials).

Wear-Ever Green Fashion and Re-Purposeful Living instructor: Anita Kealey
sponsored by Institute of Design & Technology of South Dakota
wednesday, april 28
check in at 12:00pm, workshop from 12:30pm-4:30pm
washington pavilion, discovery den (321 south main avenue, third floor of kirby science center)

Anita Kealey is the Creative Director and founder for the Institute of Design & Technology of South Dakota, an alternative educational experience in design & entrepreneurial careers in fashion design, interiors & staging. IDTSD’s Green Design workshops explore sustainability in textiles and eco-friendly practices and reuse in fashion. Their summer Project: Design Boot Camps offer creative exploration of careers in design. Anita is president of The Design Studio, Inc., an award winning and innovative design in contract design. She has received recognition over the past twenty five years for her dedication to historic preservation, kitchen design and creative design solutions in healthcare, hospitality renovation and new construction projects. Her work has been seen in many publications such House Beautiful, Old House Interiors, Signature Kitchen & Bath, Qualified Remodeler. This past year, she and her award winning projects were on HG-TV as well as a featured spread in Midwest Living Magazine. She is also the designer behind the Evenings by Design Couture label as widely seen on the “red carpet” entertainment, inaugural and special event evening wear. After two decades of her designs gracing the Miss America runway, her eco-friendly up-cycled, gowns created of sustainable and reclaimed materials made their debut at the 2010 Pageant and the Oscars.

Wear-Ever Green Fashion will explore sustainable attire and accessories from up cycled items with a previous life. Explore unique accessories that are created from unconventional items. Participants will engage in hands on activities to create items to take home and add to their own wardrobe. A few of the unusual materials used include rubber from tires, old zippers, pop tabs, men’s ties and dog food bags that are typically discarded on a daily basis.

Re-Purposeful Living focuses on unfolding new ideas for your daily life. It is an industrial approach to reusing items typically thrown away to create statement pieces and functional items for your home or office. Attendees will actively participate in creating projects and explore ways to apply these refreshing ideas to their everyday lives.

Register here for Wear-Ever Green and Re-Purposeful Living (cost is $45 and includes supplies and materials to take home).

Concepts in Sustainability instructor: Doug Raynie
wednesday, april 28
check-in at 8:00am, workshop from 8:30am-4:00pm
washington pavilion, classroom 312 (321 south main avenue, third floor)

Dr. Doug Raynie is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at SDSU and owner of an analytical consulting company, Blue Sky Analytical, LLC. Dr. Raynie’s research focuses on environmental analysis and developing chemical processes which are more sustainable, such as greener leather processing or lignin utilization. His research group was recognized with the Plain Resolve award at the inaugural Plain Green Conference in 2008. He has taught green chemistry, and developed green chemistry education materials, locally and nationally for ten years. Prior to coming to SDSU, Dr. Raynie developed new analytical technology in the Corporate Research Division of the Procter and Gamble Company. He holds a B.A. from Augustana College in biology and chemistry, an M.S. in chemistry from SDSU and Ph.D. in chemistry from Brigham Young University.

Concepts in Sustainability will provide an overview of sustainable design principles and thought processes. Just as architects design buildings, scientists and engineers design molecules and processes. While presented from the technology and engineering perspective, the workshop will be broadly applicable to those in any career. Topics will include case studies and discussions of sustainability trends and drivers, supply chain and sustainable design, cradle-to-cradle design, biomimicry, industrial ecology, renewable resources, life cycle analysis and eco-efficiency, renewable resources, and green chemistry principles and metrics.

Register here for Concepts in Sustainability (cost is $35 and includes learning materials).

Post-Copenhagen Report: What New Climate Legislation Means for SD instructors: Jamie Horter and Matt McGovern
wednesday, april 28
registration at 7:30am, workshop from 8:00am-11:30am
washington pavilion, discovery den (321 south main avenue, third floor of kirby science center)

Jamie Horter is a student at Augustana College in Sioux Falls and an intern with the Sioux Falls Green Project. In 2009 she became a member of the Will Steger Foundation delegation to the UN Climate Conference (“COP15″) in Copenhagen, and speaks on climate change action around the region.  Jamie has rooted herself in seeking the right questions to ask about solving the world’s most pressing issues. Her travels have taken her to places where stories of life, hardship, and hope further strengthened her passions to pursue solutions for hunger, poverty, and environmental and social injustices.

Matt McGovern is the South Dakota State Director of Repower America, a project of the Alliance for Climate Protection and Climate Protection Action Fund.  Repower South Dakota supports climate and clean energy legislation that will create jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and help solve the climate crisis.  McGovern is an attorney and practiced law at a private firm in Rapid City after completing a clerkship with the United States District Court, District of South Dakota.  He has spent several years working for conservation organizations and political campaigns.

Post-Copenhagen Report will provide an overview of  explaining what happened at the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen in Decmeber 2009 and what’s to come as a result of those negotiations. The workshop will also provide an overview of current US climate legislation, asking questions like “Where does SD stand in a clean energy future?” and “What’s the story behind cap-and-trade?”  Attendees will also learn how to take initiative, discussing roles individuals can play in shaping the future of South Dakota.

Register here for Post-Copenhagen Report: What New Climate Legislation Means for SD (this workshop is FREE, pre-registration is encouraged but not neccessary).