180.655.01
Baltimore Food Systems: A Case Study of Urban Food Environments
Location
East Baltimore
Term
3rd Term
Department
Environmental Health and Engineering
Credit(s)
4
Academic Year
2016 - 2017
Instruction Method
TBD
W, F, 10:00 - 11:50am
Auditors Allowed
No
Available to Undergraduate
No
Grading Restriction
Letter Grade or Pass/Fail
Course Instructor(s)
Contact Name
Frequency Schedule
Every Year
Resources
Students look closely at Baltimore City's complex food environment using discussion, experiential learning, discussion, lectures and related texts. Students consider improvements to these systems to assure access to nutritious, adequate, affordable and sustainably produced foods, and to increase supply and demand of these foods; to address diet related disease; and to reduce food system environmental harms. Students "go backstage" with tour guides at sites around the city. Class sessions are primarily discussion-oriented, but also include lectures and guest visits. Students consider the relative impacts of access, demand, cost, stakeholder interests, administrative issues, history, and power, and consider the relative strengths of voluntary, governmental, legal and other strategies. They also consider applicability of lessons from Baltimore to other area food systems.
Learning Objectives
Upon successfully completing this course, students will be able to:
- Analyze responses to challenges and opportunities within Baltimore's food system
- Discuss key factors that have shaped food systems in Baltimore and other urban locales
- Describe from first-hand experience the clientele, operations, key opportunities, and challenges in advancing positive change in Baltimore food and agriculture system sites
- Discuss innovative food system interventions being considered in Baltimore and elsewhere
- Describe how food systems and food environments relate to public health broadly and environmental public health more specifically
- Conduct and document qualitative interviews
- Comment on how the city’s history has contributed to the current food system
- Discuss school food, the issue of plate waste, school salad bars, and farm to school programming, and reflect on the experience of assessing plate waste in school cafeterias
Enrollment Restriction
No auditors allowed.
We provide time for students to arrange transportation with other students for the field trips, service learning; you do not need a car to participate.