Towards an equity competency model for sustainable food systems education programs

Addressing social inequities has been recognized as foundational to transforming food systems. Activists and scholars have critiqued food movements as lacking an orientation towards addressing issues of social justice. To address issues of inequity, sustainable food systems education (SFSE) programs will have to increase students’ equity-related capabilities. Our first objective in this paper is to determine the extent to which SFSE programs in the USA and Canada address equity. We identified 108 programs and reviewed their public facing documents for an explicit focus on equity. We found that roughly 80% of universities with SFSE programs do not provide evidence that they explicitly include equity in their curricula. Our second objective is to propose an equity competency model based on literature from multiple fields and perspectives. This entails dimensions related to knowledge of self; knowledge of others and one’s interactions with them; knowledge of systems of oppression and inequities; and the drive to embrace and create strategies and tactics for dismantling racism and other forms of inequity. Integrating our equity competency model into SFSE curricula can support the development of future professionals capable of dismantling inequity in the food system. We understand that to integrate an equity competency in our curricula will require commitment to build will and skill not only of our students, but our faculty, and entire university communities

Insights from the Think&EatGreen@School Project : How a community-based action research project contributed to healthy and sustainable school food systems in Vancouver

From 2010 to 2016, the Think&EatGreen@School project worked to create healthy and sustainable school food systems in the Vancouver School Board.Using models of Community-Engaged Scholarship and Community-Based Action Research, we implemented diverse programmatic and monitoring activities to provide students and teachers with hands-on food cycle education, in order to influence policy, and to encourage university students to engage actively with the food system. Our focus was on transformation of local school food systems as a context-specific means to address serious global issues related to food security, health and environmental sustainability. This paper provides a synthesis of the project including the context that led to its inception, its overarching goals, methodological framework and areas of impact. Key learnings from this project highlight the need for continued work to integrate research, teaching and action on global food security, environmental and public health challenges and to build connections to create healthy, sustainable school food systems.Land and Food Systems, Faculty ofNon UBCReviewedFacultyResearche

"Chew On This"- Food Security, Eh? A Panel Discussion on Sustainable Food in a Canadian Context

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, hosted by Common Energy UBC, Oxfam UBC, and the UBC Commerce Undergraduate Society’s Sustainability Committee. “Chew On This,” is a week-long series of lectures, panel discussions, and workshops. A diverse group of panelists will share their research and thoughts on the topic of Canada and what it means to have sustainable food in Canada. Panelists include: * Dr. Andrew Riseman, Associate Professor of Applied Biology and Plant Breeding in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems; co-chair of the Campus Academic Plan committee working to guide the future of the UBC Farm. * Dr. Sean Smukler, Assistant Professor of Applied Biology and Soil Science; Junior Chair, Agriculture and the Environment; research working with farmers to assess impacts of farm management practices. * Dr. James Vercammen, Professor in both the Faculty of Land and Food Systems and the Sauder School of Business; research focussing on food and resource economics. * Will Valley, Project Coordinator, Think&Eat Green@School; member of Inner City Farms. Will’s research interests include the analysis and application of community-engaged scholarship and food system education * Anelyse Weiler, Communications Coordinator, UBC Farm * and Sophia Baker-French, Registered Dietician; MSc Candidate in Human Nutrition; previous Research Assistant with Think and Eat Green @ School; prior coordinator at the UBC Farm School Tours program. Moderator: Amy Frye, Acting Director of UBC FarmLand and Food Systems, Faculty ofUnreviewedResearche

Flexible Learning Strategies in First through Fourth-Year Courses

Flexible Learning (FL) is a pedagogical approach allowing for flexibility of time, place, and audience, including but not solely focused on the use of technologies. We describe Flexible Learning as a pedagogical approach in four courses framed by three key themes: 1) objectives and aspects of course design, 2) evaluation and assessment, and 3) challenges and improvements. Examples of strategies include: digital media-based assignments; iClicker and on-line quizzes; a librarian-created tutorial and links to copyright-cleared readings; use of Calibrated Peer Review as formative feedback; TurnItIn for self-review; wiki sites, group blogs and community work through Community-based Action Research (CBAR) conducted through the pedagogy of Community-Based Experiential-Learning (CBEL). We believe that the transferability of our experiences and findings is most relevant to educators seeking to create learning experiences that increase student engagement with complexity and uncertainty. FL approaches can help educators create learning environments that more closely resemble the contexts that students find upon graduation

Toward Food System Sustainability through School Food System Change : Think&EatGreen@School and the Making of a Community-University Research Alliance

This paper describes the theoretical and conceptual framework and the research and practice model of Think&EatGreen@School, a community-based action research project aiming to foster food citizenship in the City of Vancouver and to develop a model of sustainable institutional food systems in public schools. The authors argue that educational and policy interventions at the school and school board level can drive the goals of food system sustainability, food security, and food sovereignty. The complex relationship between food systems, climate change and environmental degradation require that international initiatives promoting sustainability be vigorously complemented by local multi-stakeholder efforts to preserve or restore the capacity to produce food in a durable manner. As a step towards making the City of Vancouver green, we are currently involved in attempts to transform the food system of the local schools by mobilizing the energy of a transdisciplinary research team of twelve university researchers, over 300 undergraduate and graduate students, and twenty community-based researchers and organizations working on food, public health, environmental and sustainability education.Continuing StudiesLand and Food Systems, Faculty ofTeaching, Learning and Technology, Centre for (Distance Learning)ReviewedFacult

Toward Food System Sustainability through School Food System Change: Think&EatGreen@School and the Making of a Community-University Research Alliance

This paper describes the theoretical and conceptual framework and the research and practice model of Think&EatGreen@School, a community-based action research project aiming to foster food citizenship in the City of Vancouver and to develop a model of sustainable institutional food systems in public schools. The authors argue that educational and policy interventions at the school and school board level can drive the goals of food system sustainability, food security, and food sovereignty. The complex relationship between food systems, climate change and environmental degradation require that international initiatives promoting sustainability be vigorously complemented by local multi-stakeholder efforts to preserve or restore the capacity to produce food in a durable manner. As a step towards making the City of Vancouver green, we are currently involved in attempts to transform the food system of the local schools by mobilizing the energy of a transdisciplinary research team of twelve university researchers, over 300 undergraduate and graduate students, and twenty community-based researchers and organizations working on food, public health, environmental and sustainability education.food citizenship; food security; food sovereignty; food system sustainability; school food; education; community-based action research; community-engaged scholarship

Centering Equity in Sustainable Food Systems Education

Sustainable food systems education (SFSE) is rapidly advancing to meet the need for developing future professionals who are capable of effective decision-making regarding agriculture, food, nutrition, consumption, and waste in a complex world. Equity, particularly racial equity and its intersectional links with other inequities, should play a central role in efforts to advance SFSE given the harmful social and environmental externalities of food systems and ongoing oppression and systemic inequities such as lack of food access faced by racialized and/or marginalized populations. However, few institutional and intra-disciplinary resources exist on how to engage students in discussion about equity and related topics in SFSE. We present perspectives based on our multi-institutional collaborations to develop and apply pedagogical materials that center equity while building students\u27 skills in systems thinking, critical reflection, and affective engagement. Examples are provided of how to develop undergraduate and graduate sustainable food systems curricula that embrace complexity and recognize the affective layers, or underlying experiences of feelings and emotions, when engaging with topics of equity, justice, oppression, and privilege

Toward more ethical engagements between Western and Indigenous sciences

There is growing interest among Western-trained scientists in engaging with Indigenous sciences. This interest has arisen in response to social pressures to reckon with the colonial foundations of Western science and decentre Western ways of knowing, as well as recognition of the need to draw upon the gifts of multiple knowledge systems to address today's many complex social and ecological challenges. However, colonial patterns and power relations are often reproduced at the interface between Western and Indigenous sciences, including the reproduction of epistemic Eurocentrism and extractive modes of relationship between settlers and Indigenous Peoples. This paper seeks to support Western-trained scientists to recognize and interrupt these patterns in order to create the conditions for more ethical, respectful, and reciprocal engagements with Indigenous sciences. We also offer a map of the different ways that Western sciences have thus far engaged Indigenous sciences. We particularly highlight the emergent possibilities offered by a reparative approach to engagement that emphasizes the responsibility of Western science to enact material and relational repair for historical and ongoing harm, including by supporting Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty in science and beyond

Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures: Reflections on Our Learnings Thus Far

In this article we review learnings from our collaborative efforts to engage with the complexities and challenges of decolonization across varied educational contexts. To do so, we consider multiple interpretations of decolonization, and multiple dimensions of decolonial theory and practice – in particular, the ecological, cognitive, affective, relational, and economic dimensions. Rather than offer normative definitions or prescriptions for what decolonization entails or how it should be enacted, we seek to foster greater sensitivity to the potential circularities in this work, and identify opportunities and openings for responsible, context-specific collective experiments with otherwise possibilities for (co)existence. Thus, we emphasize a pedagogical approach to decolonization that recognizes the role of complexity, complicity, and uncertainty