The Wicked Problem of Food Security: Modules that Promote Interdisciplinary and Systems Thinking Using AGO

Document Type

Presentation

Presentation Date

7-17-2017

Abstract or Description

Over the next several decades, food security will continue to be one of the most pressing issues facing our planet. With this in mind, three professors from different disciplinary backgrounds, cultural geography, geosciences, and science education, created a 3-week module on food security using ArcGIS Online to integrate social and environmental datasets. The interdisciplinary module was designed for online and face-to-face venues and tested in different classroom contexts: geography, environmental science, and sustainability.

During our presentation, we will discuss the three-week module, where we have taken an Earth systems approach to understand and address world food insecurity issues, and explore how social, economic, and political factors impact decision making and can improve or compromise the biogeochemical interactions provided by the Earth system as they pertain to food production. Students will explore the very factors that cause food insecurity (including climate, socio-economic, and physical) through readings, lecture, case studies, and geospatial analysis using ArcGIS Online. The module culminates with a small research project on food security in three localities, urban New York City, rural Nebraska, and developing islands in the Caribbean. AGO web maps with environmental and social datasets were created for each locality that students used in their final projects. The food security module is available through the SERC InTeGrate website. This session will show how the materials in the module can be used as well as how they were made, so that instructors will know how to create their own modules that include AGO.

Sponsorship/Conference/Institution

Earth Educators Rendezvous

Location

Albuquerque, NM

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