Writing a Recipe for Teaching Sustainable Food Systems: Lessons from Three University Courses
Christy Anderson Brekken,
Hikaru Hanawa Peterson,
Robert King and
David Conner
Additional contact information
Christy Anderson Brekken: Department of Applied Economics, Oregon State University, 228 Ballard Extension Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
Hikaru Hanawa Peterson: Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, 231 Ruttan Hall, 1994 Bufford Ave., St. Paul, MN 55108, USA
David Conner: Department of Community Development and Applied Economics, University of Vermont, 205H Morrill Hall, Burlington, VT 05405, USA
Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 6, 1-19
Abstract:
The sustainability of the food system is at the forefront of academic and policy discussions as we face the challenge of providing food security to a growing population amidst environmental uncertainty and depletion, social disruptions, and structural economic shocks and stresses. Crafting a sustainable and resilient food system requires us to go beyond disciplinary boundaries and broaden critical and creative thinking skills. Recent literature calls for examples of pedagogical transformations from food systems courses to identify successful practices and potential challenges. We offer a recipe for what to teach by framing systems thinking concepts, then discuss how to teach it with five learning activities: deductive case studies, experiential learning, reflective narrative learning, system dynamics simulations and scenarios, and inductive/open-ended case studies, implemented with collaborative group learning, inter/trans-disciplinarity, and instructor-modeled co-learning. Each learning activity is animated with concrete examples from our courses at Oregon State University, University of Minnesota, and University of Vermont, USA. We discuss opportunities and challenges implementing these strategies in light of student, instructor, and institutional expectations and constraints. But the challenge is worth the effort, because food system transformation requires active learners and systemic thinkers as engaged citizens, food system advocates, entrepreneurs, and policy makers.
Keywords: food systems; sustainability; undergraduate education; graduate education; system thinking; applied economics; interdisciplinary; transdisciplinary; reflective learning; collaborative learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/6/1898/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/6/1898/ (text/html)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:6:p:1898-:d:150982
Access Statistics for this article
Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu
More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager (indexing@mdpi.com).