Instructor Materials: Overview of the The Wicked Problem of Food Security Module

Module Goal: Students will be able to use systems thinking to evaluate and assess food insecurity in a location by analyzing authentic geospatial and socioeconomic data; be able to identify components, processes, and fluxes of Earth system science and apply these concepts in a location and assess the role the Earth system plays in the food system and contributes to food insecurity; and be able to propose plans to promote food security in a locality that include an understanding of the present day food vulnerability, the interaction of human and natural systems, and impacts of climate change.

Module Summative Assessment: Working in small groups, students will use what they have learned about the interdisciplinary problem of food security to design a community-based action plan for a specific location. This plan will incorporate geospatial, socioeconomic/cultural, and other types of data. The target audience for their product is envisioned to be local community leaders and decision makers. The final product could be in the format of a PowerPoint presentation, poster, or written report. For example, students could work in teams to produce a plan to the governing body in Barbuda, a small island developing state (SID) in the Caribbean. Students will integrate ecosystem services, climate change impacts (e.g., sea level rise and salt water intrusion, increased extreme events) and socioeconomic/cultural data (perceptions of farming, water, and agricultural practices) to lessen the dependency on expensive imported food and water for people living on the island.

These materials have been reviewed for their alignment with the Next Generation Science Standards. At the top of each page, you can click on the NGSS logo to see the specific connections. Visit InTeGrate and the NGSS to learn more about the process of alignment and how to use InTeGrate materials to implement the NGSS.

NGSS in this Module

The Wicked Problem of Global Food Security Module aligns well with the High School NGSS Cross cutting concepts: Cause and Effect, and Stability and Change, as well as the NGSS Disciplinary Core Ideas: Global Climate Change, Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience and Human Impacts on Earth Systems. High school teachers could adapt the module to could be used at the high school level. While it would be beneficial to introduce the topic of Global Food Security to middle level students, this module's units require a deeper understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of science than is typical of middle school students. The module uses the flipped classroom strategy which requires students to conduct an extensive amount of research on their own and then come to class prepared to work with their peers in team settings. Students' make and analyze GIS maps to study food security with a focus on malnutrition. The students learn why it is a "wicked problem" and work in teams as they research the food security problem in regions of the United States. Finally the student teams apply the same process to where they live.

Summary

The 1996 World Food Summit declared food security to be "when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life." Over the next several decades, food security will continue to be one of the the most pressing issues facing our planet. In this three-week module, we take an Earth systems approach to understanding and addressing world food insecurity issues, and explore how social, economic, and political factors impact decision making and can improve or compromise the biogeochemical interactions provided by the Earth system as they pertain to food production. Students will explore the very factors that cause food insecurity (including climate, socio-economic, and physical) through readings, lecture, case studies, and geospatial analysis using ArcGIS Online. The module will culminate with a summative assignment where students will design a community-based action plan utilizing a variety of data sources addressing food insecurity in a location of their choosing.

Show more about this module

In today's world, there are many problems facing humankind that are both global in scope and have the potential to rapidly escalate into severe situations with life-threatening consequences. These problems have been termed wicked problems because they have, "cause and effect relationships that are difficult or impossible to define, cannot be framed and solved without creating controversies among stakeholders and require collective action among societal groups with strongly held conflicting beliefs and values," (Dentoni et al. 2012:1). The size, scale and complex interconnections of wicked problems make them impossible to truly solve.

One of these wicked problems is global food security. According to the United Nations, food security exists when all people at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. Food insecurity is linked to myriad sociocultural problems, including poverty, inequality, health, poor working conditions and education, which in turn results in a lack of access to the resources needed to grow or purchase food. Environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, unsustainable land use practices are problems that can be traced back to perturbations in the environment through mismanagement of the Earth system, and are wicked problems in their own right, yet contribute significantly to the problem of global food security.

Global food security shares several characteristics with other wicked problems. The problem involves a large number of people and resolving the problem would come at an enormous economic investment. Because the problem has to be addressed at many spatial and temporal scales, a single overarching solution is not viable. While there are different opinions about how specific aspects of the problem could be mitigated, our understanding of both the problem and potential solutions are incomplete. Because wicked problems involve interconnected cultural, socio-economic and political systems, attempts to mitigate or solve a problem in one part of the system can propagate unexpected or unwanted change in the other parts.

If that wasn't bad enough, global food security has been described as a super wicked problem,"because time is running out, there is no central authority to take charge, and those who are seeking to solve the problem are also part of the problem," (Connolly and Phillips-Connolly 2012: 139.).

Wicked problems cannot be fully solved, but they can be addressed, managed, and mitigated. A goal of this module is for students to experience the challenges of problem solving in a complex system environment. Addressing a complex problem like global food security requires using systems thinking and applies an interdisciplinary approach that identifies and addresses phenomena taking place in a variety of action arenas: sociology, economics, political systems, technology, and science, to name a few. Students will employ the cloud-based ArcGIS Online to explore the spatial dimensions of socioeconomic, geopolitical, and environmental data and conduct an analysis of food security issues in a region of their choice. In their in-depth examination of the wicked problem of global food security, students see that human socioeconomic systems and the Earth system are inextricably connected and together determine the future of our planet.

References

Connolly, A and Phillips-Connolly, K. (2012) Can agribusiness feed 3 billion new people...and save the planet? A GLIMPSE into the future. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, 15 (Special Issue B):139-152.

Dentoni, D., Hospes, O. and Ross, R. B. (2012) Managing wicked problems in agribusiness: role of multi-stakeholder engagements in value creation. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, 15 (Special Issue B): 1-12.

Ritchie, T. 2013 Wicked problems: Modelling social messes with morphological analysis. Acta Morphologica Generalis 2(1): 1-12.

United Nations High Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis (2010) Updated Comprehensive Framework for Action (September). Downloaded September 5, 2015

Unit 1 The Basics of Global Food Systems

This introductory lesson builds the foundation for students to progress through the remaining lessons by defining food security and discussing the major factors contributing to food insecurity today (climate change, population growth, economic downturns, and change in global food consumption/wealth). Tied intimately to global food security is the concept of malnutrition. In this unit, students will engage with the three subcategories of malnutrition, which will provide an important base for understanding the variation of food security across the globe and challenge often held assumptions that food insecurity only comes in the form of extreme hunger. Finally, students will be introduced to the global food system and will use a case study of examining chocolate production to describe its components. As a formative assessment, students will take a five question multiple-choice quiz on the concept of malnutrition and the major causes of global food insecurity.

Unit 2 Systems Thinking to Address Wicked Problems

Armed with an overview of the complexity of issues associated with global food security, this unit begins by contextualizing food security as an example of a wicked problem. Wicked problems are problems that are unsolvable in the traditional sense, and have complex multiscalar causal factors that contribute to the creation of new issues as old ones are addressed. Both global food security and climate change are examples of wicked problems. This unit presents systems thinking as a way to identify complex problems and explore solutions. Using a flipped classroom model, students complete a self-study tutorial which presents system concepts in the context of Earth system science. The slide stack includes two guided activities related to the carbon cycle and soils. A short reading, "Why Systems Thinking?" is included in the tutorial. Authentic assessment of the homework activity is an Earth system diagram connected to one of the issues of global food security from Unit 1 that they will bring to class. After a short class discussion that introduces concepts of sustainability and ecosystem services as related to food production, students are broken into groups and are asked to create their own systems diagram of the global food system, using the organizational systems concepts they examined as homework and the introduction activities of Unit 1. After completing the diagrams, students participate in a gallery walk, and then, armed with new ideas, return to their diagrams to finalize their group diagram. Students can photograph their diagrams or make quick sketches so they have a working copy to include with their notes.

Unit 3 Climate Change and Food Security: The Case of Chocolate

This unit applies a flipped classroom model. Students complete a self-study tutorial. Part 1 provides an overview of how the Earth's latitudinal climate zones are generated by the Earth system, and Part 2 provides a very short introduction to climate change by revisiting the carbon cycle and discussing how human activity has changed the flux rates of carbon from sequestered reservoirs below ground, and enriched the carbon in the atmosphere, contributing to anthropogenic greenhouse gas enrichment and climate warming. The tutorial includes exploration of an interactive activity, two short videos, and a reading assignment. In class, students are divided into 4 groups, and assigned to one of four Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenario projections: A1, A2, B1, or B2. Students are asked to work independently or in pairs to generate a time-aware climate change Web map application using ArcGIS Online. Returning to the theme of cocoa production introduced in Unit 1, students identify climatic conditions conducive for cacao production around the world, especially West Africa where the majority of cacao is grown. Students then use a web application in ArcGIS Online to create a time aware map showing biomes in the Köppen Climate Classification System and determine how projected climate changes will impact the suitable production regions for cacao in West Africa. Using a jigsaw model, students collect into groups of 4, with a representative from each of the IPCC scenarios, and they compare the the impact of the 4 scenarios in specified cocoa production regions. In the last 5 minutes of class, students complete an exit quiz to evaluate understanding, identify misconceptions and areas where additional guidance and instruction may be needed.

Unit 4 Food Security Case Studies

Drawing on datasets for our three case studies (Nebraska, New York City, and Barbuda, West Indies), students examine climate, built and natural land cover, water availability (ground and precipitation), as well as type, availability, and contamination of soils. Students conduct a spatial analysis using online ArcGIS to examine how people practiced agriculture in the past (e.g., freed slaves in Barbuda, native Americans in New York and Nebraska regions), how agriculture is practiced now (e.g., large-scale farming in Nebraska and small-scale urban farming in New York City) and assess whether these practices leverage or diminish ecosystem services. Based on an understanding of past and present agricultural practices and environmental conditions, students apply systems thinking to predict how ecosystem services may be impacted by climate change in the near future (50 years) given the present way of conducting agriculture in these localities. To engage students and draw on their prior knowledge, think, pair, share teaching strategies will be used. As formative assessments, students need to submit 1) a short reflection on the commonalities and differences in the types of ecosystem services and impacts of climate change between two of the three case studies, and 2) how people historically farmed the land compared to today, and what practices may or may not utilize ecosystem services effectively in the two localities chosen.

This unit delves more into an examination of urban-rural and Global North/Global South comparisons of food security and social justice issues using online ArcGIS. Focusing on one or more areas of inquiry identified in Unit 2 and using base maps that they initiated in Unit 3, students will conduct spatial analyses using socioeconomic/cultural data (e.g., census tract data of income, race and other, locations of farms and supermarket access) and environmental data (e.g., elevation, land cover, hydrology), to identify areas of food insecurity (vulnerability) in Barbuda, New York City, and Nebraska, and how food insecurity may be revealed or defined in these different localities. For example, students will identify where access to supermarkets is difficult and which groups of people are more vulnerable. Background material provided by the instructor will introduce students to ideas of sustainability and resilience, and how an integration of social equity, economic opportunity, and ecosystem services are necessary for people to build sustainable and resilience communities.

Small teams of students will select one of these locations (Barbuda, New York City, or Nebraska) OR a new location of their choice (provided that datasets are easily available) to apply skills and concepts taught in the previous units. The summative assessment is a community-based action plan of how the selected community can increase food security (lessen vulnerability). To produce this plan, students will synthesize present-day agricultural practices, cultural perceptions, socioeconomic status and trends, and the types of ecosystem services provided in the locality, and the potential impacts of climate change at this locality. Student deliverables will include one or more maps (utilizing ArcGIS online) included in either a PowerPoint presentation or poster. Given costs and time involved in printing posters, the poster can be done in PowerPoint and projected for others to view. Using a jigsaw strategy, students will conduct peer assessments of their colleagues' work using a rubric provided and used by the instructor.

Unit 5 Access to Food: Spatial Analysis and the Identification of Food Deserts

The class period begins with a discussion of food deserts and a short demonstration of how food deserts can be recognized through spatial analysis, using an online GIS map. Class time is used to create a GIS map for identification of food deserts in the student's case study region. Teams continue to work on their regional plans.

Unit 6 Team Presentations: Regional Case Study Community Action Plans

This class period is devoted to peer presentations of the community-based action plans developed by each team. Using a rubric to organize their presentations, teams will describe the food security issue they identified in their region, identify the data they needed to address their issue, and present their action plan to the class. Presentations should be grouped by region, which will allow learners to identify similarities and differences in food security issues between the case study regions. A rubric (which is distributed in Unit 4) is provided to assist in evaluation and determination if course learning objectives have been attained. Individual learners are asked to apply the rubric and provide a written critique of one of the group projects as a homework assignment, and this document, submitted to the instructor, serves as an authentic assessment of individual understanding of the topic.

Making the Module Work

To adapt all or part of the Wicked Problem of Food Security module for your classroom you will also want to read through

Instructor Stories, which detail how the Wicked Problem of Food Security module was adapted for use at three different institutions, as well as our guide to
Adapting InTeGrate Modules and Courses for Your Classroom, which outlines how to effectively use InTeGrate modules and courses.

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Instructor Materials: Overview of the The Wicked Problem of Food Security Module

Summary

Unit 1 The Basics of Global Food Systems

Unit 2 Systems Thinking to Address Wicked Problems

Unit 3 Climate Change and Food Security: The Case of Chocolate

Unit 4 Food Security Case Studies

Unit 5 Access to Food: Spatial Analysis and the Identification of Food Deserts

Unit 6 Team Presentations: Regional Case Study Community Action Plans

Making the Module Work

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