Kerry Byrne: Using Introducing the Wicked Problem of Global Food Security in Sustainable Human Ecology course at Oregon Institute of Technology

I used portions of Unit 1 and Units 4 – 6 in this course, and also developed a short PowerPoint based on the reading materials provided in Unit 2 about the definition of a "Wicked Problem."

Unit 1

• On the first day of the unit, I began class by asking students to spend five minutes independently thinking about the following prompt: "When you hear the words food security, what images, places, characteristics come to mind? Spend a few minutes writing your impressions (a couple sentences). You could also search for images that illustrate your thoughts." Instead of having students submit it on the course management system, at the end of five minutes I had students shout out their responses and I wrote them all on the white board.
• Next, I reviewed key concepts and definitions in the Instructor Review PowerPoint (I did not modify the powerpoint)
• After these activities, there were about 15 minutes left in class. I had students begin working on the AGO Chocolate activity using laptops in the classroom. NOTE: if you plan on using this activity, be sure to have students sign up for accounts (or get access to the University account) ahead of class time, so it doesn't waste time. For me, this took a little prep in the days leading up to the activity. None of the students completed the activity in class, so they completed it for homework that was due two days after assigned. I modified the InTeGrate assignment slightly, and allowed students to select a chocolate bar of their choice and map the path of the ingredients from across the world to their hometown (where they grew up). That way, it insured that students didn't copy each other, because no two students had the same hometown in my class. It was very interesting to observe the varying levels of effort – some students stuck to Hershey's and only mapped cacao, sugar, and milk, while other students selected obscure brands of chocolate and mapped a suite of ingredients (vanilla, nuts, milk, cacao from multiple sources, etc.).

• Before lab, I assigned two students to each of the three regions, and posted the assigned pre-class readings before we met as a class.
• At the beginning of lab, I introduced the concept of a "wicked problem" using the reading from Unit 2 as a guide to create a brief powerpoint. Once the students were familiar with the concept, I used the powerpoints from Unit 4 to introduce the three locations that students would investigate for Unit 4. I found it important to express to students that each region had unique issues affecting it, and unique data sets were provided to help them address some of the issues. This was important, as each group really had to work independently on creating their AGO analyses using different types of data.
• I had posted the case study materials for each region on the course management software before class, so after my lecture, I let the students begin small group work (in pairs) brainstorming the food security issues that they thought were important in their region in the context of wicked problems. Students had about 100 minutes to begin thinking about their presentation that would take place the following week. Students had about 100 minutes to work with their partner using laptops in the classroom to discuss, conduct analyses, and do research for their presentations the following week. They also had the class period the following day (50 minutes) to work on their presentations using the class laptops. In total, they had about 150 minutes to work on the analysis/presentations during class time. The rest they had to do outside of class.
• In the class discussion after the lab/lecture period the students were given to work on their presentations, students were assigned a reading on ameliorating food desert conditions in the United States.
• The following week (6 days after I had introduced the assignment), students gave 15-minute presentations to the class; assuming the audience was either the mayor of NYC, the Governor of Nebraska, or CARICOM. I posted the grading rubric for their presentations (unmodified from InTeGrate) on the course management software the week prior.