Steven Vanek: Using in The Future of Food at Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus

• Reviewing the first part of each module, which was usually (though not always) the 'basic concepts' part of the module's focus: e.g. soil basics, nutrition basics, crop families, etc.
• Addressing questions or misconceptions noted in the module quizzes which were designed to encourage reading
• A short presentation to introduce the main theme of the second part of the module or the overall module focus, and introduce the summative assessment.
• (either before or after the summative) An introduction to any resources that students will need to complete the formative assessment that they complete out of class,
• (Usually) A large chunk of time for small groups to begin the summative assessment with faculty input and guidance. Sometimes this was substituted for group time working on capstone projects.

1. Module 1, Introduction: Because this was a blended course, part of the teaching role in module 1 was establishing how students would complete the half or more of reading and assignments they would do out of class. We had students read and complete module 1.1 outside of class and asked them to read module 1.2 online before the second class (the first class was spent on class mechanics and a short powerpoint and activity introducing the class). After a review of systems concepts from module 1.1 in the second class and short discussion of the "Environment and Food" reading, we assisted the students in starting the summative assessment in groups of two to three.

2. Module 2, History of Food Systems: Students read and completed Module 2.1 and the reading for 2.2 by the third class. A nice idea for the third class is to highlight domestication by talking about some common food crops and how and where they were domesticated, perhaps with some visual aids (a potato? An ear of corn?), as well as a few of the theories around the emergence and spread of agriculture. A lot of summative assessment will depend on what students have read about the four historical phases of food system, so be sure to emphasize the need to read, or consult the text in the case of students who may not have prepared adequately for the summative assessment. Examining the summative assessment and answer key ahead of time may help instructors to provide better guidance to students about the nature of key drivers in changes of food systems. One note: it was very helpful to guide students to the soil mapping website they will need for formative assessment in the soils module (now module 5)

3. Module 3, Nutrients and Soils (now module 5): This module was simplified somewhat from the original pilot, but as in our case it still may be a place where non-agricultural or geosciences students begin to see what seems like lots of new material in an unfamiliar subject and can feel daunted. Students read and completed the formative assessment outside of class. If possible it can be helpful to correct the formative assessment before class and hand it back, as well as conducting a short discussion on the trends in soil properties that were seen. As well as touching on basics of nutrient cycling, it may be helpful before the summative assessment to conduct a brief description of what a nutrient balance is for soils, and what information on long term trends in soil fertility it provides. Be sure to discuss, either during this class or in brief during the next one, how nutrient surplus or deficit in soils can reveal environmental sustainability issues that have real consequences either in reduced food supply or income (deficit) or pollution (surplus). In addition, it is good to reinforce connections between the mapping resources and nutrient issues portrayed in this module, and their data gathering for their capstone regions.

4. Module 4, Food and Water (still as module 4): Students completed the water use calculator online out of class and came prepared to work in groups on drawing their conclusions. This is a straightforward and engaging activity based on a web tool and we saw many interesting reflections from students on water use. The class was focused on having students share their conclusions from group work, and then analyzing water's use in food production and its part in the water footprint of society. The final part of the class was the summative assessment. Student teams may need clarification of aspects of the scenarios presented as part of the summative assessment, as they begin this in the second part of the session.

5. Module 5, Crops and Agroecosystems: (see the instructor history form for Heather Karsten who taught this module during the Penn State Pilot)

6. Module 6, Food and Climate Change: Students read the materials on climate change and food production in the two parts of the module. In addition to following up on the previous week's crop-oriented assessment, groups of students then completed the exercise using the national climate change viewer in-class, along with looking up information for their capstone regions. As an instructor it is very helpful to look at the climate change viewer in advance and take stock of the parameters that are being reported – importantly that the parameters shown are the changes from current values, not the absolute values in the future. Also, the change in rainfall is given as inches/day x 100, which is a very strange unit that I found it useful to rephrased as the change in rainfall over a 100 day period, and then explain to students that 1-2 inches (30-50 mm) of rain is a moderate rain event that is effective in recharging soil and giving crops a good "drink" – so that a 1-2 inch change on the map represents a gain or loss of one moderate rain event over a 100 day (or about 3 month) period: e.g. "If before there were four substantial rains, now there will be five". Finding explanations like this is very helpful to make the data mean more than answers they can fill in on the worksheet. It's also important to explain that although rainfall actually goes up in many areas, the temperature is projected to go up even more so that overall drought stress can increase, especially in summer months. The "Evap. Deficit" change variable on the mapping is very effective for explaining this. In any case being familiar with the viewer will make your guidance of students' efforts much more effective.

7. Module 7: Agroecosystems: Soils and a Systems Approach to Soil Quality (see the instructor history form for Heather Karsten who taught this module during the Penn State Pilot)

8. Module 8: Food Systems: This began our attempt to put the natural and human systems covered in the course into a cohesive whole, and we made this known to students starting in the previous week's class. Students read the module materials and did the activity focused on the supply chain for a common food item that they consume over the week before the class. We then had students share some of their food items and what they learned from the exercise, which was a productive discussion focused on the wide range of distances food can travel and the human and natural system factors that explain why and where food is produced and consumed. Also in this class, we gave a brief overview of life-cycle assessment approaches and different types of food systems environmental impacts, which can usually be linked naturally to the food supply chain activity they completed and to the examples in the module. These then lead into the students beginning their summative assessment on life cycle assessments of different potato production methods. It is also important to point out that different types of assessments are good for making different types of conclusions, e.g. deforestation versus pesticide use and effects on agroecosystems and food contamination. The conversation in our class included the consideration that the LCA focused on fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions may have differed from one that assumed a limited amount of land where the minimum land per unit food produced (highest yield) would have been privileged. The focus in the assessment is on practicing a tool rather than assuming it will instantly answer any question on sustainability, and acknowledging that sustainability can contain complex and contested definitions in the end.

9. Module 9: Resilience, Adaptive Capacity, and Vulnerability (RACV): This is a module where we scaled back the amount of reading and work dramatically after the pilot because students had a heavy work load at this point in the semester. If the module were used to supplement an upper-level undergraduate class on resilience or sustainability, however, some of the additional readings in the references could be reintroduced for purposes of discussion, e.g. additional chapters from Gary Nabhan's book. The subjects of agrobiodiversity and seed systems, versus food insecurity and vulnerability in the second part of the module, are different enough that these could be covered in two weeks, or one or the other could be omitted, with the formative used as a summative on agrobiodiversity and resilience. Students read the materials and completed the formative assessment before class. We then addressed the concepts of agrobiodiversity and RACV in a brief presentation in class and answered questions on the formative assessment, before they began the summative assessment on food insecurity and famine in Somalia. A key role for the instructor in this module is to help students identify the way that RACV concepts are used within a coupled human-natural framework. For example, human systems can be resilient in the case of agrobiodiversity because they are managing crop agrobiodiversity in a certain way, which represents the resilience of a human-natural system to a further perturbation from the natural system (or a perturbation from the human system in the case of war, policy changes, etc.)

10. Module 10: Agroecosystems and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) (see the instructor history form for Heather Karsten who taught this module during the Penn State Pilot)

11. Module 11 (now module 3): Diet and Nutrition: Students completed the reading and the online diet tool before class, and some comments that it was very long which led us to simplify it for core messages after the pilot. There were a lot of good comments and reactions to the online diet tool, somewhat akin to the water footprint tool in module four. We mostly depended on the quiz and knowledge check activities to ground the students in basic human nutrition concepts (e.g. calories, protein, vitamins, etc.) and used the class to launch directly into global nutrition and health challenges (chronic diseases, the "double burden" of malnutrition and diseases of "affluence", etc.) in a short presentation and discussion. Then groups of students began the summative assessment on food access using the food access mapper, with consideration of how food access was a challenge in their focal regions for the capstone project. There may be students for whom the cases presented in the short readings and radio program from the assessment are not familiar enough to provide key messages, and if they are really missing these messages of the exercise the instructor may need to ask some guiding questions, at her/his discretion.