UC releases report on experiential learning in food and agriculture systems

The Global Food Initiative's Experiential Learning Subcommittee seeks to increase, improve and make more accessible experiential learning opportunities for students at all levels (undergraduate, graduate and professional students) throughout the University of California.

Working toward this overall aim, the Experiential Learning Subcommittee has undertaken a project to identify successful experiential learning programs, practices and approaches in food and sustainable agriculture systems on UC campuses. This webpage shares the results of the first stage of this project, through the following documents:

• A ‘living' online directory of experiential learning courses and programs that have experiential components in food and agriculture systems at the UC campuses as of spring 2015. More than 200 experiential learning courses and 150 programs have been identified.
• A report titled “Learning from the Ground Up: Experiential Learning in Food and Agriculture Systems Education at the University of California,” (pdf) summarizing lessons learned, best practices and case studies in experiential learning.

The subcommittee also has released several student-produced videos that document successful experiential learning opportunities on UC campuses.

The subcommittee members hope that these materials are useful to students, educators, researchers, administrators and others interested in learning about the importance of experiential learning opportunities in food systems, and will contribute to the goals of expanding more experiential learning opportunities of this kind.

Lead collaborators:

• Kate Kaplan, Berkeley Food Institute, UC Berkeley, and Global Food Initiative student fellow
• Damian Parr, Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, UC Santa Cruz
• Jennifer Sowerwine, UC Cooperative Extension and UC Berkeley
• Lori Ann Thrupp, Berkeley Food Institute, UC Berkeley
• Mark Van Horn, Agricultural Sustainability Institute and Student Farm, UC Davis

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