In January 2005, the Ministry of Education for the Province of Ontario, Canada, gave approval and funding to Sir Sandford Fleming College for the first full-time, post-secondary course in sustainable building. Hosted at Fleming’s campus in Haliburton, Ontario, the program is a 20-week full-time, intensive course that features five weeks of classroom theory teaching and 15 weeks of hands-on building.
For the first year of this course, the building project will feature earth-plastered straw-bale walls in a commercial structure designed to house the local food bank and thrift store. It is a unique partnership between the college, the municipal government and the 4Cs, a local charity that runs the food bank and thrift shop.
Located in the centre of town, the 4Cs building will also feature the region’s first grid-intertied photovoltaic power system, solar hot water, radiant heat provided by a biodiesel heating device, a compressed earth brick floor and many other sustainable building technologies. Because of its public location, the building will be signed on the exterior and provide public education about sustainable building technologies.
The course quickly reached its maximum of 20 students, and the 2006 version is almost full too. This points to the need for more formal education opportunities in strawbale and sustainable building.

The full curriculum for the course can be viewed at www.flemingc.on.ca/Full-time/ProgramDisplay.cfm?ProgramCode=SBD.
Chris Magwood can be reached at <TLSEditor@thelaststraw.org>