Heather Karsten: Using "The Future of Food" in 2016

which will be offered as "Food and the Environment" in the future at Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus

About this Course

Introductory course for students in many programs. The new course will be offered initially in Geography.

students

One 75 minute class

, each week

Course Syllabus, the Future of Food, Penn State University (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 46kB Nov21 16)

Show the catalog description of my course

The Future of Food is an introductory-level science course that emphasizes the challenges facing food systems in the 21st century, and issues of sustainability for agriculture and other food production activities as well as the challenges posed by food insecurity and modern diets to human health and well-being. Topics covered include: introduction to the coupled-system perspective; historical development of food systems; socio-economic aspects of the food system; interaction of the food system with Earth's environment, including soil, water, biota, and climate; and the future of the food system, considering potential changes such as in climate, urbanization, and demography.

Show more about the course goals and content

When students successfully complete this course, they will be prepared to:

Analyze the land, biological, energy and water resources, and climatic conditions in relation to food production systems.
Analyze how human food systems significantly alter Earth's ecosystems, landscapes, surface processes and waterways.
Evaluate scenarios for the future of food considering resilience in the context of climate change, human population growth and socio-economic, cultural and policy factors.

This is a new introductory course about agriculture and food systems, the challenges and some potential strategies for enhancing sustainability. The course introduces food systems, human nutrition, types of food supply systems, environmental factors that shape agricultural systems, some major agroecosystem components and practices for managing them, and a framework for assessing food system resilience to climate change. I co-taught the pilot course with Steven Vanek, who was the primary instructor. I led the three modules I authored (Crops, Soils and a Systems approach to Soil Quality, and Pests and Integrated Pest Management), attended every class meeting and contributed when appropriate. I also provided students with some assistance on the capstone project, particularly in the last few weeks.

This was my first experience teaching a "flipped class." Students were responsible for reading the course pages online and completing a weekly quiz and formative assignment before class, allowing us to identify what was difficult for students in the first part of the module. In the once-a-week class meeting, we reviewed difficult material, and introduced themes of the second part of the module as well as the summative assessment. During the second half of each class, students analyzed and interpreted data in a summative assignment with classmates.

I enjoyed teaching this food systems course that introduces multidisciplinary facets of agri-food systems with breadth, depth and examples from multiple locations in the world. I was concerned the course would be challenging for beginning-levels students, particularly because they must advance to higher-level learning relatively quickly. Students were challenged; but the "flipped classroom" format enabled time for student-student and student-instructor dialogue about some of the advanced-level coursework, and most students developed an introductory understanding of agriculture and food systems.

My Experience Teaching with InTeGrateMaterials

We piloted the course in spring 2016 as a blended course with one 75-minute class meeting a week.

Relationship of InTeGrate Materials to my Course

We taught all of the modules in a 15 week piloted course, but in a slightly different order and form. Since then, based on student feedback, our observations and reflection, our course author team slightly modified and revised the course.

A Unit-by-Unit Breakdown of How I Taught this Course

We taught all of the course modules in the order on the Future of Food course syllabus (see also Steven Vanek's instructor story). When we piloted all of the modules, most of the modules were longer with more text, assigned readings, longer assessments, and in some cases more than two formative assessments. Student surveys and feedback indicated that the piloted course was more work than other courses, and that some modules were more challenging due to the extent of material covered and some complicated summative assessments.
Some students didn't complete all of the course pages, had difficulty learning all the material, and completing some of the assessments. Therefore, we have reduced the amount of information, removed some additional readings, and simplified essentially all of the formative and summative assessments. We also rearranged the order of some modules, so they present similar topics or introduce concepts that were helpful for later modules in a better sequence. I also think students would benefit from meeting twice a week to provide an additional opportunity to clarify their understanding with the instructor and their classmates while working on the formative assessment.

Crops Module:

I used all the elements of the Crops Module along with some additional assigned readings that I have removed in the revised module and integrated into the course pages. The piloted formative assessment did not direct students to as many resources to help them understand the soil topography and climate of the states they analyzed; these additional resources provide more information to help students understand environmental drivers.

In class, I explained students points of confusion that I identified based their submitted quizzes and formative assessments. I also briefly reviewed some key crop plant families, C3 and C4 photosynthesis, and how to navigate the FAO top world commodities website for the summative assessment. Students had about half of the class time to work on the summative assessment, and I quickly realized that most of the students were not familiar with managing data and doing calculations in spreadsheets. So, I provided the class with the completed calculations in a spreadsheet, to enable them to spend time on the rest of the summative assessment. Unless one is teaching upper-level students, I recommend that instructors provide students with the FAO data and the completed calculations in a spreadsheet.

Soils and a Systems approach to Soil Quality:

I used all the module elements as well as some additional readings on crop rotations and cover crops. Due to student feedback about the time demand of the course, those additional readings have been removed from the revised module, and the themes have been integrated into the course pages. In class, I reviewed the role of organic matter and how crops and tillage systems influence soil organic matter and other soil quality indicators for agriculture. To link to the crops module, we reviewed differences in annual and perennial plant resource allocation, and their contributions to soil conservation and soil organic matter.

Pests and Integrated Pest Management module:
I used all of the module elements and some additional readings about insect pests and their natural enemy population dynamics, resistance management of Bt crops, and weed management practices that are most suitable for weeds with different life cycles. Because this module covers an extensive amount of information, those outside readings have been removed from the revised module, and the critical themes are presented in the course pages. In class, we briefly reviewed the key themes of integrated pest management, economic threshold, and a refuge for resistance management. To help students begin the herbicide resistance summative assessment, I encouraged students to think broadly and we discussed a wide range of possible implications of the agribusiness industry's approach to weed herbicide resistance.

Assessments

The Crops Module formative assessment activity asks students to use a online NASS geo-spatial map of US crops and land use, as well as soils, topography, and climate maps to interpret why the production of the top two crops dominates in two different states. In the piloted class, students tended to rely heavily on their understanding of the climate of a region, and did not consider the topography and soil. Therefore, I added links to maps of soil topography, soil descriptions, and climate information, and ask students to use these resources to describe the two states they selected prior to asking them to explain why two crops dominate in those locations.

The Crops Module summative assessment asks students to view the FAO list of the top world food commodities and classify the crops of top 15 FAO world food commodities, analyze which four have increased the most in production since 2000 and to interpret what might explain the increase in their production. To allow students more time to interpret the data, I recommend providing students with the completed calculations of the top 15 FAO commodities in a spreadsheet that shows students how the percent change is calculated. This spreadsheet is included with the instructor assessment tools, and instructors should update it to reflect changes in future years.

The Soils and a Systems approach to Soil Quality formative assessment asks students to read about indicators of soil health, and then discuss practices that can promote soil health. There is an embedded reading in the formative assessment about soil organic matter and why it is important. In the revised formative assessment, students are asked to discuss why organic matter is important and how it affects multiple soil functions.

The summative assessment asks students to analyze and interpret soil and crop data from a 12 year cropping systems experiment. In the summative assessment, some students overlooked the significance of annual versus perennial cropping history to explain differences in soil properties. Prompting students to consider the annual and perennial plant life-cycle, and how plant above and below ground biomass allocation differs among these types of crops helped students consider which crops have more potential to reduce soil erosion and return organic matter to the soil.

In Pests and Integrated Pest Management (IPM), the formative assessment requires students to interpret an economic threshold table and make decisions to manage a major alfalfa pest. Interpreting the economic threshold table can be challenging. If students complete this activity in class, they can discuss the activity and the instructor can provide some assistance. The summative assessment asks students to analyze and critique herbicide resistance crop technologies to manage herbicide resistant weeds. I recommend discussing some of the issues with the class to help students consider multiple aspects of transgenic crop pest technologies. See the grading key for more information.

Outcomes

The course goals were to introduce students to agriculture and food systems, and for students to understand the challenges and some opportunities to enhance food system sustainability. The goals of the three modules I wrote and taught were to introduce students to the science of crop plants, soil quality and management, and crop pests and pest management. In addition, students were to understand agroecological drivers (ex. climate, soil, human socio-economic drivers) and dynamics, and how this knowledge can aid in designing informed sustainable crop, soil and pest management practices.

How students performed:
Overall, students achieved an introductory understanding of food system and agricultural drivers and dynamics. Students with some prior coursework or experience with the course topics, and those who completed more of the course reading and activities attained a better understanding of agricultural and food systems dynamics. We have reduced the amount of course material in the revised course. Meeting more than once a week would also help students pace their learning, and provide more time for students to discuss the material, and work on the formative assessment with their classmates and input from the instructor.

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Heather Karsten: Using "The Future of Food" in 2016

About this Course

My Experience Teaching with InTeGrateMaterials

Relationship of InTeGrate Materials to my Course

A Unit-by-Unit Breakdown of How I Taught this Course

Assessments

Outcomes

Classroom Context

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