Food for Thought: Developing Curricula for Sustainable Food Systems Education Programs

Abstract

The study of food systems is a quickly growing field. In high demand by postsecondary students, new food systems studies programs are emerging from a range of disciplines. Food systems are inherently complex and are best understood from a range of academic perspectives and practical contexts. We review current scholarship on food systems pedagogy and present approaches for developing and implementing food systems curricula. A literature review and our experience indicate that effective food systems program approaches include emphasizing interdisciplinarity and a systems approach and balancing experience, theory, and practical skills acquisition. We discuss strategies, challenges and opportunities for building food systems curricula.

Making Visible the People Who Feed Us: Educating for Critical Food Literacy Through Multicultural Texts

“…Although these types of food systems education programs can differ in terms of their specific goals, they all typically embrace and emphasize the value of experiential learning (Blair, 2009;Hilimire et al, 2014;Parr & Trexler, 2011), or the notion that people learn and construct knowledge by making meaning out of their experiences (Dewey, 1938;Kolb, 2014). In the context of food systems education, experiential learning opportunities include direct exposure-whether through field trips or internships-to the processes of food production and to other locations in the food system.…”

Writing a Recipe for Teaching Sustainable Food Systems: Lessons from Three University Courses

“…Undergraduate and graduate students are poised to engage the wicked problems of the food system, putting university education to the task of supplying the tools and knowledge that they need through interdisciplinary food systems or sustainable agriculture programs at universities [1,[7][8][9][10][11]. Food system work is springing from colleges of agriculture in the agro-ecological or environmental sciences disciplines, incorporating social science disciplines that bring in dimensions of culture and justice, public health and nutrition, agricultural economics, public policy and planning, and others.…”

“…Valley et al [1] and Hilimire et al [8] provide recent systematic reviews of sustainable food systems programs, which have begun to write a recipe for food systems courses by proposing signature pedagogy and successful approaches. Responding to Valley et al's [1] recommendation to share examples of pedagogical transformations, our goal is to put some "meat on the bones" of the food systems pedagogy literature with concrete examples from our university food systems courses taught at Oregon State University, University of Minnesota, and University of Vermont, USA, all housed in Applied Economics Departments but teaching food systems courses that serve undergraduate and graduate interdisciplinary degree programs.…”

“…In Section 3, we first delineate what to teach by isolating the necessary systems thinking concepts that are identified as the key ingredients for food systems courses, framed through our experience teaching these concepts through an applied economics lens [1,8]. Then, we address how to teach systems thinking by proposing a framework of five learning activities and three implementation strategies that emerge from the food system pedagogy literature.…”

“…While our universities offer full food systems programs, our food systems courses are core classes in that education, and are often attended by students who are not participating in the full programs. By focusing on our core food systems courses, we embrace the challenges and opportunities to impact a wide range of students in a variety of disciplines, who are the future food system citizens, consumers, professionals, advocates, and policy makers [1,3,8].…”