Green Earth Fair

The 2009 Green Earth Fair, held on May 3, was a huge success! Thank you to the speakers, exhibitors, musicians and other performers, and all the volunteers who contributed their time and talent!

In 2010 the Green Earth Fair date will be Sunday afternoon, May 2, from 1 to 5 p.m.

For awhile we will leave posted the following descriptive information that applied to the 2009 Fair.

• Experts speaking on organic lawn care, sustainable landscaping, organic home gardening, green home building and remodeling, personal steps to control your carbon footprint, nutrition, and more. The full schedule is below.
• More than 50 organizations and vendors providing information about their activities and products to help you achieve a greener and healthier lifestyle.
• Children's activities include planting seeds, exploring the rich organic soil to find some critters, and making musical instruments. The children's parade with their musical instruments made from recycled materials will start from the Main Stage at 3 p.m.
• Entertainment including local folk and blues musicians
• Tours of the organic farm
• Organic vegetable seedlings and native landscaping plants available for purchase.

The Green Earth Institute is located at the McDonald Farm, owned by The Conservation Foundation.
Address: 10S404 Knoch Knolls Road
Naperville, Illinois 60565

Speaker Schedule

1:30 p.m.
Architectural Solutions For A Green Home
Organic Lawn Care
Conservation @ Home
Sorting Out Nutrition Issues

2:30 p.m.
Greening Your Existing Home
Organic Home Gardening
Sustainable Landscape
Kids Need Nature & Nature Needs Kids

3:30 p.m.
Are You Effectively Green?
Organic Lawn Care (repeat)
Rain Gardens & Rain Barrels
Beekeeping at the Farm

Speaker Information

Architectural Solutions for a Green Home — 1:30 p.m. in the Barn
Lisa Elkins, LEED AP & Ron Elkins, LEED AP, NCARB
Lisa and Ron Elkins are licensed architects with more than 25 years of combined experience in San Francisco, London, and Chicago. After becoming LEED accredited by the US Green Building Council, they founded 2 Point Perspective to pursue their two passions: sophisticated design and sustainability. Their own home was recently featured on the eco-remodeling show, Renovation Nation. Lisa and Ron will share ideas about using architecture and interior design to create homes which are healthy and efficient in addition to being beautiful.

Organic Lawn Care — 1:30 p.m. at the Milkhouse (also at 3:30 p.m. in the Barn)
Bill Scheffler
Bill Scheffler has a degree in Horticulture from the University of Illinois and is the third generation of his family in the greenhouse business. Twenty years ago, Bill started Pure Prairie Organics, a natural lawn and tree care business. He considers himself a soil nutritionist and is enthusiastic about teaching people how to cultivate beautiful, healthy lawns and gardens without the use of harmful chemicals, pesticides and herbicides. Come hear why he says every gardener should be using yogurt, molasses, vinegar and ammonia.

Conservation @ Home — 1:30 p.m. in the Clow Education Center
Jim Kleinwachter
Jim Kleinwachter, Land Preservation Specialist for The Conservation Foundation, has worked for many years on prairie and wetland restoration projects. Watching interest increase in ways to practice conservation and native landscaping at home, he developed two Foundation programs to assist and support homeowners in their efforts—the Conservation @ Home certification and the sale of rain barrels. Today Jim will tell us what those are about, and provide resources so we can take these basic steps toward greening our home landscape.

Sorting Out Nutrition Issues — 1:30 p.m. in the Granary
Olive Kaiser
Our future children's bodies are sitting on our dinner plates today. Someday our children may look in the mirror and grade our choices. If they are able to speak. Mrs. Olive Kaiser is a married mom of 7, including two nurses. Family illness prompted investigation of the gluten syndrome and its crucial underlying causes. This talk, based on the 1930's research of Drs. Weston Price and Francis Pottenger, highlights nutrient dense food, traditional fats, toxins, and today’s food intolerances.

Greening Your Existing Home — 2:30 p.m. in the Barn
Tim Davis
Tim Davis has worked in residential construction for over 25 years, the last 10 years devoted to green building, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, resource reduction, and building science. He is a member of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), through which he is a Certified Green Professional. Tim will discuss ways to reduce heating, electricity, and water usage, thus reducing the cost of operating your home, and green design factors to strive for in designing a remodel or designing/buying a new home.

Organic Home Gardening — 2:30 p.m. in the Milkhouse
Urban Oen
Urban Oen is a West Chicago gardener and educator with degrees in Agriculture and Agriculture Education. Urban started gardening organically more than 30 years ago and grows over 50 vegetables and fruits each year. Urban was the DuPage County Grand Champion vegetable grower for over 15 years. He has given numerous presentations to garden clubs on composting, organic gardening and organic lawn care. He has been helping his neighbors garden organically and has over 30 years of lawn care and landscaping experience.

Sustainable Landscape — 2:30 p.m. at the Butterfly Garden
Jack Pizzo
Jack Pizzo founded his landscape restoration firm in 1988, which has since become a regional leader in successful ecological restorations. A Senior Ecologist and Registered Landscape Architect, Jack is expert at restoring, creating, and enhancing prairies, wetlands, woodlands, and savannas. Jack’s firm was engaged by The Conservation Foundation to restore the ponds and wetlands at the McDonald Farm, where the Green Earth Institute leases the farmland, and now Jack and his staff are redoing the butterfly garden in front of the farm house (office of the Foundation).

Kids Need Nature & Nature Needs Kids — 2:30 p.m. in the Clow Education Center
Judy Fitchett
Judy Fitchett is Director of Youth and Family Education for The Conservation Foundation. Studies show that experiences in nature are important to the healthy mental, emotional and physical development of children. In today’s digital era kids are plugged in and tuned out to nature with increasing health effects. However, the remedy may be as close as your back yard. As part of the Leave No Child Inside initiative, our goal is to improve children’s health and foster future citizens who care for and protect nature.

Are You Effectively Green? — 3:30 p.m. in the Granary
Christine Martersteck, M.S.
Christine is an accomplished biochemist, a former biology professor at North Central College, and a Director for Naperville for Clean Energy and Conservation (NCEC). Today's talk will focus on the most effective ways to reduce household carbon emissions, and present the most recent Naperville statistics on carbon emissions and recycling. Rather than listing "101 ways to be green", we will discuss the most important changes that can have the biggest impact. Many actions are cost-free, while other actions can merit substantial government incentives.

Organic Lawn Care —3:30 p.m. in the Barn (also at 1:30 at the Milk House)
Bill Scheffler
Bill Scheffler has a degree in Horticulture from the University of Illinois and is the third generation of his family in the greenhouse business. Twenty years ago, Bill started Pure Prairie Organics, a natural lawn and tree care business. He considers himself a soil nutritionist and is enthusiastic about teaching people how to cultivate beautiful, healthy lawns and gardens without the use of harmful chemicals, pesticides and herbicides. Come hear why he says every gardener should be using yogurt, molasses, vinegar and ammonia.

Rain Gardens & Rain Barrels — 3:30 in the Clow Education Center
Jim Kleinwachter
Jim Kleinwachter, Land Preservation Specialist for The Conservation Foundation, has worked for many years on prairie and wetland restoration projects. Watching interest increase in ways to practice conservation and native landscaping at home, he developed two Foundation programs to assist and support homeowners in their efforts—the Conservation @ Home certification and the sale of rain barrels. Today Jim will tell us what those are about, and provide resources so we can take these basic steps toward greening our home landscape.

Beekeeping — 3:30 p.m. at the Milkhouse
Glen Hartweck
Glen Hartweck is a retired educator who has been keeping bees for over 35 years. He began when his father was beekeeping during retirement and suggested Glen needed bees for his struggling gardens and fruit trees. When Glen finally gave in, his crop production tripled—and he was sold! Glen is a member of the Cook-DuPage Beekeepers Association and the Illinois State Beekeepers Association. He keeps his bees here at the McDonald Farm and at his home in Villa Park.

View and/or print the complete 2009 Fair Program, the 12-page document with detailed information about the schedule. speakers, exhibitors, performers, and children’s activities!