Initial Publication Date: May 10, 2023

Kyungsun Lee

Teaching Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Boulder

About Me

Kyungsun Lee is an environmental social scientist focusing on the sustainability transition of energy, water, and waste system. As an interdisciplinary scholar, her research is based on environmental sociology, human geography, and industrial ecology. Her overarching research agenda is to understand the governance of the socio-technical system toward urban sustainability transition. Specifically, She examines the role of different stakeholders to understand how innovative technologies such as desalination, eco-industrial park, and green hydrogen are developed, diffused, and implemented in our society.

As an interdisciplinary educator, Kyungsun would like to bring systems thinking into her class. She is passionate to inspire students to learn skills and knowledge to address global, national, regional, and local environmental challenges. In her classroom, she emphasizes a student-centered and active learning approach to understanding complex environmental issues. She teaches energy policy, environmental justice, and the water-energy-food nexus at CU Boulder.

Focus of current FEW-Nexus-based education work

As a main instructor, I am designing and teaching the Water-Energy-Food Nexus course at the Department of Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder from Fall 2022. Based on my experiences in course design and teaching, I can provide the following valuable idea to the visioning document: developing a platform for sharing teaching resources, connecting the FEW-Nexus-based education to community engagement and service learning; and exploring career development based on the FEW-Nexus-based education.

One of the challenges to design the course was the lack of resources. As the NC-FEW already discussed, there are challenges to accessing some resources such as syllabi and teaching materials regarding the FEW. Even though I can access the resources, I realized that there were no common goals of teaching and every instructor from different fields had different goals and understanding of the FEW. In my case, I am focusing on the policy analysis and environmental governance of the FEW Nexus. Based on this experience, I would like to suggest developing a platform in the NC-FEW to share teaching and learning resources. It will include syllabi, case studies, and relevant activities. It could be a great help to encourage more instructors to teach the FEW in the whole course or as a part of current courses.

Second, I would like to discuss the opportunities of the FEW-Nexus-based education for community engagement and service learning. In my course, we explore and discuss several case studies of FEW-Nexus issues in Colorado and the western United States. Based on the student feedback and my reflections, the local case studies draw attention to students and encourage them to participate in class actively. Also, it is easier to invite guest speakers to discuss real-world FEW Nexus issues. Based on this experience, I realized that there are many FEW-Nexus issues in the local area and the FEW-Nexs-based education in higher education, K-12, and informal education could collaborate with the local community and eventually contribute to achieving sustainability in the local area. I believe if the FEW-Nexus-based education can be connected to community engagement or service learning, it could be easy to get support from the institution because nowadays many institutions are pursuing community engagement. Based on this, I would like to discuss how the FEW-Nexus-based education contributes to the community in the Workshop.

Third, I believe that the NC-FEW should care more about the contribution of FEW-based education to the career development of students. One of the questions that I received from students was how the FEW concepts and practices are related to their future careers. Since then, I have been thinking about the benefits of FEW-based education for the future generation who should solve complex environmental problems. I believe the FEW-based education will contribute to improving several professional skills, and furthermore, the student can learn the different ways of thinking about environmental issues based on the FEW. I would like to develop the idea of how FEW-based education will contribute to the career development of students during the workshop.

FEW-Nexus-based education experience, expertise and interests

Based on my experience in the design and teaching of the case-based FEW-Nexus course in higher education, I believe I can provide insights on

  1. local, national, and global case studies and relevant teaching materials, 
  2. teaching methods including problem-based, project-based learning and gamification based on the FEW-Nexus cases, and 
  3. insight to how to connect the FEW-Nexus cases to the current environmental studies curriculum in higher education. 

For further discussion, I would like to collaborate with experts on higher education, especially focused on various active-learning techniques. The following are details of the cases I used during my class and insights.

First of all, the FEW cases can draw from local issues. In my class, we explored the FEW-Nexus-related issues in Colorado and the Western United States and discuss the roots of problems and potential policy solutions. The cases include hydro-fracturing in Colorado, green infrastructure in Denver, water conflicts in the Colorado River, and Agro Voltaic policy in Colorado. In the local case studies, there are several benefits to increasing students' interests and participation for engagement and potential to develop as a service-learning as I described in the previous section. Furthermore, students who majored in environmental studies are already familiar with this issue, so it was easier to conduct in-depth studies. In addition, if they wanted to continue to explore their case studies, it is possible to expand to their independent studies or Honors thesis research. In this context, the local case studies are well connected with other subjects in Environmental Studies.

Second, my class also explores the FEW cases in the United States. In this case, I was more focused on the environmental justice issues in the FEW. For example, we discussed the just transition of the Navajo Generating Station. Students learned not just the connection between energy (Navajo Generating Station) and water (Central Arizona Project), but also different stakeholders who can get benefits from the Nexus and take risks of the Nexus. We also discuss the issues of dam building in the Klamath River, in California, and how indigenous knowledge and culture are important to solve the conflict across the issue. I believe these cases are useful to contribute to the diversity, equity, and justice issues in Environmental Studies and higher education.

Third, we also explore several global case studies to explore the FEW issues. This case is based on the gamification learning strategy. Each group represented different countries participating in the discussion. Last semester, we explored the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam case, and this semester is exploring the Mekong River case. As a group project, they can learn how to group work and how to research unfamiliar issues. Furthermore, they learn stakeholder and narrative analysis for each country and understand the roots of problems. Furthermore, they explore alternative policy options and the pros and cons of each option. These cases are connected to environmental policy analysis and environmental governance.

Publications, presentations, and other references

  • Lucas Seghezzo, Gretchen Sneegas, Wendy Jepson, Christian Brannstrom, Sydney Beckner, Kyungsun Lee (2023). "The use and potential of Q method in environmental planning and management." Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. https//doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2023.2207727
  • Cindy Figueroa, Kyungsun Lee, Wendy Jepson (2022). "Water in Corporate Social Responsibility: A Review." WIREs Water. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1607 
  • Rob Greer, Kyungsun Lee, Amanda Fencl, Gretchen Sneegas (2021). "Public-Private Partnerships in the Water Sector: The Case of Desalination". Water Resources Management. 35, 3497–3511. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-021-02900-9 
    Kyungsun Lee, Wendy Jepson, (2021). "Environmental Impact of Desalination: A Systematic Review of Life Cycle Assessment " Desalination, 509, 115066. 
  • Gretchen Sneegas, Sydney Beckner, Christian Brannstrom, Wendy Jepson, Kyungsun Lee, Lucas Seghezzo (2021). "The Use of Q Method on the Environmental Issues: A Systematic Review." Ecological Economics, 180, 106864.
    Kyungsun Lee, Wendy Jepson (2020). "Drivers and Barriers to Implement Urban Wastewater Reuse: A Systematic Review" Water Security, 11, 100073.