So after a weekend away from the site the participants returned to complete the final week of their PDC.

I had the opotunity to teach a whole session on water harvesting 1st thing on Monday morning and realised early on that this session needs to be about giving broad concepts and then giving the resources/references etc. for the guys to direct further study.

I structured the lesson as an intro on the importance of water and it's high priority in any design. Followed with an overview of harvesting structures starting in zone 1 and moving out.

Special consideration was given to storage of water in the soil but also many types of physical storage. 

The concept of spreading water across a landscape using multiple strategies form swales to cross rips and on contour plantings was a major focus.

We concluded with a discussion on dam types and uses.

At lunch I took a large group of course participants to a large pile of spoil left from a pond construction and used it as a scale model of a hillside to physically demonstrate swale construction and touch a little on keyline theory.

I feel the session was reasonably successful and the balance of content was correct but I have definitely seen some room from improvement in delivery of what can be difficult concepts to grasp from diagrams on a whiteboard.