Site As A Classroom: Lichen Lover & Air Quality

We’re warmly inviting you to join us for our Autumn series of Site as a Classroom at CIVIC SQUARE. On Tuesday afternoons we gather with friends and neighbours to rehearse and practice skills for the care and maintenance of of our homes, streets and neighbourhoods through collective stewardship of this site that will become the Neighbourhood Public Square.
In this week's session we’ll be exploring air quality in our inner city contexts, the many connections this has to our health and wellbeing, what kinds of indicators we might be able to find around us and how we can start to organise around this critical ecological health lever. Building on the Neighbourhood Science Lichen Lover activity, findings from our Neighbourhood Doughnut Portrait of Place, the learnings from Ecological Health in Neighbourhood and more, this will be a moment to also explore the ways in which we can start to navigate organising around improved air quality in our neighbourhoods and what literacy we might need to contextualise this around.

This week may include a short walk in the neighbourhood, so please do come with appropriate shoes & clothing so that you remain comfortable throughout.
Drop by the Floating Front Room for a coffee or hot drink of your choice and join us in the polytunnel for this week's session.

Autumn Season
As we move into the Autumn months, we will be continuing to look after our plants and soil harvesting crops whilst learning and practicing how we observe, identify and monitor patterns in our neighbourhood and environments as well as document our learnings as an act of archiving, democratising the knowledge, and collaboratively making a manual/guide on those topics.
On occasion we may be joined by guest practitioners with lots of expertise and experience, and where there are no guest practitioners, you can find a space to share your own skills with friends, neighbours and learn from each other, as well as put into action some of the wisdom practitioners may have shared.

Some of the wonderful guest practitioners we have been joined by so far include

• Ernie, from Warm Earth, Winson Green, Birmingham - shared with us some composting and planting skills
  
• Dieter, from Center for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth - shared with us some planter making techniques & recipe for natural protective oils for wood
  
• Veronica, from Center for Alternative Tehcnology, Machynlleth - shared with us some planting and growing techniques and
  
• Andy, from Urban Herbs who shared a his knowlwedge of polytunnels and how to group herbs together for optimum growing conditions.

• You are seeking spaces where you can connect with your neighbours, learn new things and apply them practically in your community.
  
• You are open, curious to find your spark some free time during the day
  
• You are passionatley interested in the next phases of Neighbourhood Public Square and can see yourself being a part it in the near future or the longer term.

• Please remember that we are hosting from a site with very limited infrastructure.
• No open toe footwear can be permitted on site.
• Although we are working towards this, we can't currently promise access to the use of toilets and so we currently keep sessions flexible for drop in and short in time length.
• No children under the age of 8 are permitted to be on the site during these sessions.
• Under 16s should be accompanied by a parent or guardian
  

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

CIVIC SQUARE Birmingham CIC, Rotton Park Street, Birmingham, United Kingdom