Design Portfolio Self-Assessment
A structured self-assessment rubric aligned with the permaculture design curriculum. Rate your own competency across 9 core areas of permaculture design, from ethics and principles through to whole-system design integration. This is the first step in the 360-degree portfolio review process.
Version History
Version 1.0 Current
Effective: 2026-03-30Initial version
Procedure Details
No physical hazards. Be honest with yourself — this assessment is for your own growth, not for external judgement.
Before starting:
- Review your Project and its activities, observations, and provenance chains
- Reflect on what you've learned since starting
- Have your garden journal entries available for reference
- Think about how you've applied permaculture principles in your specific context
This assessment uses the same rubric that your peer reviewer will use, so you can compare your self-assessment with their perspective.
Procedure Steps (Version 1.0)
Open your Project and review the activities you've recorded — site assessments, soil tests, plantings, harvests, designs.
For each rubric criterion below, rate yourself honestly from 1 (Novice) to 5 (Can teach others). Consider what you've actually done, not just what you've read about.
Ethics & Principles: Can you explain the three ethics and twelve principles? Have you applied them in design decisions?
Observation & Pattern Recognition: Can you read a landscape? Do you see patterns (water flow, sun arcs, wind, frost) before reaching for solutions?
Zone Planning & Sector Analysis: Have you mapped your site by zones of use frequency? Can you identify and work with external energy flows?
Soil Science & Biology: Do you understand the soil food web? Can you test and interpret soil health? Have you improved soil through practice?
Water Harvesting & Earthworks: Can you slow, spread, and sink water on your site? Do you understand contour, keyline, and swale principles?
Trees & Food Forest Design: Can you design a multi-strata planting? Do you understand guilds, succession, and canopy layering?
Climate-Specific Adaptation: Have you adapted global principles to your local climate, soil, and conditions rather than copying techniques from other regions?
Social Permaculture & Community: Have you engaged your community in your design? Do you practice peer-to-peer knowledge sharing?
Whole-System Design Integration: Can you create a complete design that integrates all elements — water, soil, plants, animals, structures, people — into a coherent whole?
Write your reflections: what you learned, how you adapted to local conditions, and your next design goals.