Rebecca Boger: Using Food Security in Introduction to Urban Sustainability at CUNY Brooklyn College
About this Course
An introductory course for urban sustainability majors
24
students
Two 1 hour 45 min lecture/lab sessions per week
Syllabus for Introduction to Urban Sustainability (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 63kB Aug16 16)
Introduction to urban sustainability; ecological, economic and social analyses of the human-nature interface in urban environments; problem-based and place-based approaches; data analysis, communication, group projects and interdisciplinary skills; site visits.
Course Objectives:
- Introduce the concept of urban sustainability
- Provide case-based, interdisciplinary analyses of urban sustainability issues
- Provide an introduction to the methods and character of data used by interdisciplinary scientists
- Develop skills to work in teams and communicate natural and social science topics
Learning Outcomes
Students completing this course will be able to:
- Identify situations that promote urban sustainability and urban unsustainability
- Apply interdisciplinary approaches to address issues in urban sustainability
- Analyze an urban sustainability problem through multiple disciplinary lenses using various forms of data (primary, secondary, qualitative, quantitative)
- Contribute to a team to study a problem and communicate the team's findings to the general public
A Success Story in Building Student Engagement
My course is an introduction to urban sustainability that integrates materials from environmental science, sociology and economics. As a relatively new course, I have been learning about what works or doesn't work each time I teach it. From the onset, the course was designed around two-week units pertaining to sustainability topics (e.g., water, transportation, housing). A few years ago, I took a Team Based Learning (TBL) workshop. While the course structure doesn't totally fit within the TBL design, I do apply many of the elements, such as having students work in teams throughout the semester, giving quizzes at the beginning of each unit so that students do the reading and come prepared to learn more deeply about a subject, and more application activities and fewer lectures. One of the course units is food and so the food security module was a perfect fit for the course, both in content and structure.
The diversity of the students reflects the international city in which they live. The topic of food is perfect for student engagement since they can relate food to their everyday experience. Many of my students have or are working in community gardens and many are poor and live in food desert neighborhoods. At the very beginning of the module, we shared our thoughts about what it means to be food insecure. I shared with them about a time in my life when my family was food insecure. I could sense that they were listening and saw that I was a person who may share experiences that they have had or are living through now. That helped set a comfortable and deep learning environment.
I was very proud of their final projects and how well they integrated social and natural science concepts and incorporated maps they had created in ArcGIS Online. Several students came up to me at the end of the course to tell me how much they enjoyed the food security module.
My Experience Teaching with InTeGrateMaterials
For the first time running the module I followed closely how the module was written. Based on the first run, I will make some minor modifications for the next time I offer the module. In particular, I will give most of the readings before the beginning of the module instead of before each unit. Most of my students work and/or have large family responsibilities in addition to attending college. Many students need time in advance to prepare for classes, and are not able to always read the night before class the following day.
Relationship of InTeGrate Materials to my Course
The Introduction to Urban Sustainability course is taught over 14 weeks. The course is designed around thematic modules of transportation, green space/brownfields, water, housing, and food, each lasting 2-3 weeks. The food module was the last topic offered. Throughout the course, examples of how social and natural systems are impacted by and impact each other are discussed.
Unit 1
Students completed the assigned readings for unit 1 and a quiz was given at the beginning of the class. We then had a discussion on what is meant by food security/insecurity. Many of the students talked about food insecurity as something that was happening in New York City. As given in the teacher instructions for the module, none of my students related it to starving children in Africa, but rather to those who are starving and/or have poor nutrition nearby in New York City. After talking about food insecurity, the students started the chocolate activity. Some of the students did not do the assigned AGO 4x4 activity, so they were doing that in class and then had to do the chocolate activity as homework. Other students already knew AGO from taking a GIS class and started the chocolate activity directly. Students had different levels of GIS background. Those with more helped those with less. For the students just learning, there is always a bit of confusion, but this passed relatively quickly.
Unit 2
Many of my students did not do the Earth system tutorial pre-class assignment of labeling the diagram of the Earth system. I think this was partly because of the confusion in the change of module structure from previous modules taught in the course where all readings were given at the beginning of the module instead of before each individual class within a unit. I started the class with the powerpoint presentation giving the overview of Earth system science. They were then given poster paper and worked on creating a food system diagram. After they completed their diagrams, they did a gallery walk. As they walked from one poster to the next, each group used sticky notes to provide suggestions on how the posters done by the other teams could be improved and to identify something that they liked about the other posters. Students returned to the poster they created and discussed how they would revise their work based on the suggestions and what they learned from the other work. Students were then given the short reflection as a homework assignment.
Unit 3
As with unit 2, many of the students did not complete the reading and writing assignment as part of the climate tutorial given as a homework assignment. At the beginning of the class, I gave the short version of the climate science that included a description of the biomes using the Koeppen Classification system. Students then began their AGO activity that has them explore climate change and cocoa production in West Africa. The activity asks the students to explore the different IPCC scenarios and describe how the biomes change in an African country they select. Although the students liked the activity, it was a bit anticlimactic since not much change could be seen in individual countries. For the scale of the web application, I would suggest that larger areas be compared instead of individual (often small) countries. That way the change in biomes can be seen better.
Unit 4
At the end of unit 3, I assigned each group a region and the background reading materials (which were posted on blackboard). At the beginning of the class, I gave a brief powerpoint overview of each region (Nebraska, New York City, and Caribbean). The students then broke into groups and discussed the readings, or if not read beforehand, do the readings. Students in each group developed a strategy on how they would work together in and outside of class.
Unit 5
Working on their assigned region, each student worked on the AGO activity individually. I walked around and helped as needed. As well, students with more AGO experience helped those with less. After completing the AGO activity, students continued to work together in their teams to develop their presentation as the final project.
The spring break fell between units 5 and 6. Because I felt that it would cause too much stress, I added an additional day for unit 5 after the spring break. This gave the students time to collect their thoughts in preparation for the presentation in unit 6.
Unit 6
Each team presented their work. At the end of each presentation, students were encouraged to ask questions. After all the presentations were given, students compared the regions to discuss what was common or different. This discussion helped with the final essay they were given.
Assessments
The two primary assessments consisted of the team PowerPoint presentation and the essay they completed individually after the presentation was made. My students took ownership of the team project and worked well together. I could tell that they were very proud of the work they did and were eager to share with me, the instructor and the other students. Throughout Units 1-3, there were other built-in-checks to make sure that they were keeping on top of the readings. I was a bit lax on enforcing these checks and likely not all students were doing the readings. For the next time that I offer the course, I would structure it like the other modules in the course and have them do all or most of the readings before they start the food module and have a quiz on the first unit.
Outcomes
I had hoped that the students would be able to integrate natural and social systems in their thinking. They realize that these systems are complex and connected. However, I would like the students to be able to describe aspects of Earth system using terminology like reservoirs, fluxes, and processes. Their assessment showed weakness in this ability and I will work on ways to help students understand these concepts better.
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