"What did the tree learn from the earth to be able to talk with the sky?" - Pablo Narunda

Throughout the development of the ALTER project and MS3 program there have been various workshops conducted on the site of the Macoskey Center. These workshops have ranged from Permaculture design course, strawbale construction, and sheep shearing to tofu and soap making. All of these workshops have been opportunities for faculty, students, staff and the larger community to interact with one another and learn together.

In 1987, the first summer workshops in Permaculture were offered at the Center offering an introductory course and design for educational credit through Slippery Rock University. Instructors for these workshops were Ted Simanek, Darrell Frey and Dawn Shiner. Darrell Frey has been a student and practitioner of permaculture design since 1980. He continues to teache a Permaculture Design Certificate Course each summer his Three Sisters Bioshelter, which he owns.

Workdays have also been occuring at the Center since its inception. Workdays are designed not to be tedious, manual labor but community building activities that have provided a venue for several campus organizations to come and help out with projects at the Center. Time spent working together pays off for not only Center operations but also new friendships and involvement.

Prominent speakers have also figured in the ALTER, Macoskey Center and MS3 communities. Speakers from around the globe have shared their expertise with these groups. The MS3 seminar series, which invites a medley of individuals with an interest in approaches to sustainability, has been active since fall of 2001.

(In 1993 SRU and the MS3 program hosted a Brazilian TV crew, which visited Harmony Homestead with the trip sponsored by the U.S. Information Agency TV Series with Lee Lederer. The USIA had learned of the Harmony Homestead from a Botswana permaculture group that came to North America to learn about and experience, knowledge and skills that allow Native Americans to survive the last five centuries and preserve their identity and culture.

The TV crew were specializing in environmental protection for use on a weekly show over TV Globo, Brazil's largest TV network. There were substantive interviews with several MS3 students and with Professors Bob Kobet, Larry Partick and Tom DeLuca. - Source: Alternator Article, November/December 1993.)