How to Create a Self-Sufficiency Unit Study
Soaring gas and food prices, foreclosures, ever more expensive utilities and an out-of-shape America mean that self-sufficiency is a vital life skill for our children. A self-sufficiency unit study will need to include building emergency and permanent shelters; collection and purification of water; hunting, fishing and foraging skills; organic gardening; canning and preserving foods; emergency preparedness; and creation of off grid power.
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Things You'll Need
- Self-sufficiency materials
- Cheesecloth
- Available planting site
- Canning jars, lids and rings
- Hunting license
- Fishing license
Instructions
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Begin by learning to build emergency and permanent shelters. According to the folks at Free Camping Recipes, "A person can survive for three hours without shelter, three days without water, three weeks without food..."Practice building a lean-to. Participate in a barn raising. Build a model yurt, using the resources given in the Tips section of this article.
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Explore various methods of collection and purification of water. Build a rain barrel with a cistern. Practice boiling water and filtering it through cheesecloth. Do a taste comparison of boiled water without filtering, with cheesecloth filtering, and with a charcoal-based filtering system.
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Practice hunting, fishing and foraging skills. Learn to identify native wild edible and medicinal plants in your area. Take a field guide with you on a hike. Photograph wild edible and medicinal plants. Choose three edible plants and three medicinal plants; write a paragraph about each plant, telling where to find it, what it looks like, how to harvest and store it, and give three uses for it.Practice making and baiting an improvised hook, using a stringer, setting a hook, removing a hook, filleting a fish, and composting the remains.Learn to build a hunting blind, sight a rifle, shoot stationary and moving targets, flush game, and distinguish game from fellow hunters by completing the IHEA Online Hunting Skills Course.
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Build a compost heap and start a strip garden. Can, freeze, or dry the produce. If you do not have a yard or piece of land you can use for your garden, find a local community garden project to join. If you only have a window box or patio, practice container gardening techniques. Use organic gardening methods.
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Build a windmill and an inverter, using articles from back issues of Backwoods Home Magazine.
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Take photos of each of your projects and share them on a social networking page. Take your produce and canned goods to your local county fair. Share your produce with needy families in your area.
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Teach at least one other person to be self-sufficient.
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Tips & Warnings
Additional links:
Wilderness Survival Rule of Threes
http://www.free-camping-recipes.com/wilderness-survival.html
Construct a Model Yurt
http://depts.washington.edu/reecas/outreach/nomadism/yurt/
Build a Lean-to
http://www.ehow.com/how_12580_build-lean-.html
How Long Can You Survive Without Water?
http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/how-long-can-you-survive-without-water/
OA Guide to Water Purification
http://www.princeton.edu/~oa/manual/water.shtml
Survival Fishing
http://www.m4040.com/Survival/Skills/Hunting%20and%20Snaring/Fishing.htm
Primitive Hunting and Snaring
http://www.m4040.com/Survival/Skills/Hunting%20and%20Snaring/Hunting%20and%20Snaring.htm
Hunting Skills Course
http://homestudy.ihea.com/huntingskills/00obj.htm
Traditional Herbal and Plant Knowledge
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/plants.html
Organic Gardening
http://www.organicgardening.com/
Use Burlap for Strip Composting
http://www.ehow.com/how_4432220_use-burlap-strip-composting.html
National Center for Home Food Preservation
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/
Red Cross Disaster Preparedness
http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/0,1082,0_500_,00.html
