Geoff has experience in every climate, temperate, desert, tropical and cold temperate so the course covers every landform and climate for a global perspective. With proper hands on experience it lays the foundation to work anywhere.
Specifically, Permaculture is a design science. The Permaculture Design Certificate course teaches the general rules of design, how to observe, measure influencing elements and decide on ways to meet goals and create designs that should work efficiently.
Yes, you can't get hands on without dirty hands on but even with 40 years growing experience it helped me bring things together. I've done a Bsci. degree and part of an Agsci. degree and never found education to be a waste, it lays a foundation for the better understanding of the hands on. There were several other folks in Florida and hundreds of other fellow tropical students worldwide I continue to work with. A two day workshop is great, a year long course is a real committment but understand Geoff has been doing the online course about 10 years now. The course material gets better every time as more and more material gets incorporated. He has talented people working every year to improve it.
When I say hundreds of hours yes some are plain lectures but some are extremely well produced presentations with animations and graphics similar to this very basic example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCJfSYZqZ0Y&tThe foundational text (highly recommended) of ~ 600 pages can be found here:
https://epdf.pub/permaculture-a-designers-manual7e99ea8750a16ab6388f4fddc078309749289.html