InTeGrate Modules and Courses >Future of Food > Instructor Stories > Gigi Richard
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These materials are part of a collection of classroom-tested modules and courses developed by InTeGrate. The materials engage students in understanding the earth system as it intertwines with key societal issues. The materials are free and ready to be adapted by undergraduate educators across a range of courses including: general education or majors courses in Earth-focused disciplines such as geoscience or environmental science, social science, engineering, and other sciences, as well as courses for interdisciplinary programs.
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Initial Publication Date: January 11, 2018

Gigi Richard: Using in GEOL 196 Topics: The Future of Food at Colorado Mesa University


About this Course

An introductory course for non-majors that fulfilled the science essential learning requirement (general education).

15
students

one 75-min session per week

Syllabus_CMU_GEOL196 (Acrobat (PDF) 446kB Nov21 16)

I piloted The Future of Food as a science essential learning (general education) course for non-majors taught in a hybrid or blended setting. We met in person once per week and the remainder of the course material delivery was online. The students were a diverse group, coming from different disciplines and age groups. Students were excited about the subject matter, but struggled significantly with the volume of material presented in the course, and the necessity to learn so much on their own because the course was implemented with a flipped approach. They were particularly challenged by the amount and variety of science concepts that were new to them.

To alleviate some of these challenges, I changed tactics and spent more time in class discussing the topics we were studying for the week to make sure that they understood the pre-class readings and activities. The in-class discussions helped considerably to clear up any confusion they had from the pre-class assignments.

The semester-long capstone project is the highlight of the course. Students explore concepts in the context of an assigned food region. Along with the capstone projects, we enjoyed eating foods from the capstone regions.

The semester-long capstone project, where students explore the physical and food environment of an assigned food region in the context of material covered in the course, is a highlight of the course. We also enjoyed eating foods from the capstone regions!

My Experience Teaching with InTeGrateMaterials

I didn't modify the course material significantly, but did lower my expectation of how prepared students would be when they showed up to class. I created handouts and PowerPoints for some of the modules to help the students grasp the concepts. I also added in-class lecture/discussion to help students with concepts they struggled with. I also reduced the blogging requirement after a few weeks. Since the pilot, the blogging requirement was eliminated. I also created a checklist for each week, which the students found very helpful in keeping track of all of the assessments, reading and other activities due each week.

Relationship of InTeGrate Materials to my Course

Entire course

Assessments

All of the assessment were used in this pilot. In general, the assessments all make great use of authentic data, require students to perform systems thinking, and require students to employ geospatial thinking. In addition, many of them were pretty long and time-consuming. Some of them were a bit confusing and complex. Since the pilot of this course, most of the assessments were simplified and downsized to make them more reasonable for an introductory level course.

Outcomes

My vision and goal in teaching this course was to expose students to the complexity of our food system and the importance of our natural resources in supporting that system. Overall, I think I was successful in that goal. At the end of the course, students were generally more aware about the impact of their food choices on the environment, included water and soil resources. They expressed that they had a much better understanding of soil, which they explained was much more complex than they ever dreamed. They said that they thought about what to eat differently than at the beginning of the course.

I don't think students came away with as good of an understanding of the science as I would have liked because we tried to teach them too much advanced science and they got overwhelmed. In the pilot version of the course, there was too much course material, which has been scaled down considerably in the post-pilot revisions.

Classroom Context

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These materials are part of a collection of classroom-tested modules and courses developed by InTeGrate. The materials engage students in understanding the earth system as it intertwines with key societal issues. The collection is freely available and ready to be adapted by undergraduate educators across a range of courses including: general education or majors courses in Earth-focused disciplines such as geoscience or environmental science, social science, engineering, and other sciences, as well as courses for interdisciplinary programs.
Explore the Collection »