General provisions

The course is given in the field of Sustainabe Development (minor).

Entry requirements

General entry requirements

Learning outcomes

On completion of the course, the student should be able to:

• account for how different aspects of food production and consumption can be linked to issues related to sustainable development and food security
•  explain how food supply can be affected by and affect climate change and other societal challenges
• give examples of and critically discuss an actor's work for sustainable food production or consumption.

Content

This course provides an introduction to food and its role for sustainable development. Food is used as a concrete example to illustrate the interplay between different dimensions of sustainable development at different scales.

The course presents a broad and general overview of food supply that covers topics from agriculture and other food production to the environmental impact of different dietary choices and food security issues. The course highlights, for example, issues such as sustainability in global and local food systems, how agriculture is affected by and affects climate change and other sustainability challenges, food consumption and global flows of food, and how different actors work to contribute to a sustainable food supply.

The first part of the course is an introduction to various important areas related to food supply, while the second part is a project work where students themselves get to investigate different aspects of how food and sustainable development are connected.

The course is developed for those who are interested in food, or in different ways work with food, and want a broader understanding of the roles that food play for sustainable development.

Instruction

The teaching consists of lectures, seminars and assignments. The lectures are given by guest lecturers from different academic disciplines and other relevant sectors of society. The teaching methods, including the project work in the course, invites active student participation, critical thinking and collaboration with other students in the course.

At the end of the course, each student conducts an individual project where they dive deeper into a question related to the course themes.

Assessment

 Assignments and active participation in seminars (2 credits), individual project report (3 credits).

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the University's disability coordinator.

Other directives

Active participation is reassessed through a re-seminar or other webbased assignments. If a student after having been offered a re-seminar still does not meet the requirements to pass the active participation elements the examiner can choose reassessment by another method.