Fall 2013  |  SOC 4090 Section 001: Topics in Sociology -- Environmental Decision Making: Food Systems Focus (35889)

Instructor(s)
Class Component:
Lecture
Credits:
3 Credits
Grading Basis:
Student Option
Instructor Consent:
No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:
In Person Term Based
Meets With:
PSY 5960 Section 004
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
09/03/2013 - 12/11/2013
Fri 09:30AM - 12:30PM
UMTC, East Bank
Science Teaching Student Svcs 432B
Also Offered:
Course Catalog Description:
Topics specified in Class Schedule.
Class Notes:
Topic prereq - jr or sr or grad student
Class Description:
How do people comprehend, shape, and manage food environments? How do people decide which dynamics of food controversies are important -- and worthy of study and activism? How do scholars identify and apply appropriate analytic frameworks to illuminate the intertwined nature of social and environmental systems? This research seminar uses a platform of interdisciplinary environmental psychology and other social science approaches to explore ways that people experience environments and make decisions about them, both as individuals and also in the social contexts where environmental decision making is institutionalized. Choosing a project appropriate to their interests and skills, students will develop, research, and engage salient public audiences in exploring questions about everyday experience in environments, particularly environments relevant to food systems (although participants with broader environmental interests are also welcome). We will use case studies at different scales to explore a range of environmental decision challenges from the everyday experience of our immediate environments to the distant, abstract, global environment writ large, for example, in the need to address climate change and changing demands for food in processes for governing environments. Projects planned for the class relate to food system decision making in local projects (such as: a student-driven project to evaluate the values embodied in University Dining Services procurement strategies; an NGO-organized project to negotiate and institutionalize a comprehensive set of food justice principles; and a state-wide project organized in collaboration with Cooperative Extension to develop community food networks), and will also include other student interests and projects students bring to or develop in class. This course will meet in conjunction with cross-food-system events planned by the 2013-2014 Institute for Advanced Study Agri-Food Collaborative, focused on building capacity to discuss difficult topics across disparate perspectives on the food system, and on building knowledge infrastructure for representing these discussions in different ways. Engaging with environmental decision projects underway around the university and state, students will have the opportunity to consider the challenges involved in using diverse knowledge systems to understand and manage socio-environmental dynamics.
Grading:
35% Reports/Papers
21% Special Projects
24% Reflection Papers
20% Class Participation Other Grading Information: DETAILS: 24%: 8 response essays; 21%: 3 community engagement exercises; 20%: participation (including some class facilitation); 35%: Term project in 4 stages: (proposal 5%, source summary 10%, presentation 10%, project report 10%)
Class Format:
10% Lecture
25% Discussion
35% Small Group Activities
20% Student Presentations
10% Field Trips
Workload:
50 Pages Reading Per Week
20-25 Pages Writing Per Term
1 Paper(s)
1 Presentation(s)
Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/35889/1139
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
10 June 2013

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