Sustainability Freshman Inquiry

Nov. 30, 2010

Jeff Fletcher

Logistics• Group Presentations for Thursday

– One person in group email me presentation by 1:30pm

• Mentor Sessions next term– Same next term unless you have conflict

(which you arrange with us)– Spring term 4pm and 6pm switch

• Final Reflections (Due Friday Dec. 3, 5pm)• Zenger Farm Pictures

– http://gallery.me.com/zacharykwong – Username: “sustain” (no password)

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for your calls on food safety – it made a huge difference. Senators returned this week and finally broke through their year-long gridlock and voted to pass the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act today.

The original Senate bill raised concerns about impacts on small businesses and farms. The new bill, the one voted on this week, includes changes that will not only give the FDA the tools to keep potentially dangerous products off grocery store shelves, it will do so while protecting small businesses and farms. Despite these changes to the bill to protect small businesses and farms, the large, industrial food manufacturers worked to derail the bill by spinning outdated small farm tales to push further amendments to gut the bill. [1]

But today, our senators rejected industry-backed loopholes and stood up for the public.

We've shared with you the serious problems – you've read about the tainted eggs, celery, potato chips, tuna fish and more. And then read about the discovery of even more tainted eggs. More than 100 recalls since this bill passed the House and we still rely on a food safety net that has not been updated in 70 years.

Now, we can finally move forward in addressing those problems. Thanks to you.

Thanks should also go to Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden who both voted for the bill. Please take a moment to give them both a thank you call at 202-224-3121.

We still have a lot of work to do, such as making school lunch food safer for kids. But today was an important step forward. Thank you for all you‘ve done.

Sincerely,

David Rosenfeld OSPIRG Executive Director (Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group)[1] A Stale Food Fight, Michael Pollen and Eric Schlosser, New York Times, Nov. 28, 2010.

OSPIRG at PSU

Sustainability FRINQ LLC

FRINQ

•General Education

•Four UNST Learning Goals

•Things all Educated People (College Grads) should know

•Credits for Writing, Science, Social Science, Humanities

Sustainability

•Understanding Environmental and Socioeconomic Problems, and their interrelatedness

•Understanding Interdisciplinary Solutions

Systems Thinking

•Understanding Problems / Solutions in the context of complex systems

•Understanding common features of systems

The Four University Studies Learning Goals

Students will acquire skills in the following areas• Inquiry and Critical Thinking• Communication• Ethics and Social Responsibility• The Diversity of Human Experience

How do topics and learning activities help:• Students gain competency in the four UNST goals• Develop skills as curious and competent self-learners• Develop an understanding of the rich interconnectedness and

complexity of our natural and social worlds• Understand basic concepts about the world (positive feedback, tragedy

of the commons, limits to our intuitions)

Topics…Critical Thinking:• Ways of Knowing, including different characteristics of different ways of knowing• Scientific Method• Mental Illusions and Scientific Skepticism

Systems Ideas:• Positive and Negative Feedbacks• Open vs. Closed systems• Natural cycles (water, carbon, nitrogen, etc.)• Tragedy of the Commons• Causal Maps

Our Food System:• National Eating Disorder• Natures way vs. Industrial/Corporate way• What is the Omnivore's Dilemma?• Domestication by Humans; or Domestication of Humans• We are corn • Dramatic Increase in Corn Yields (Hybrid vigor, GMO advances, Ammonium Nitrate Fertilizer)• Unique aspects of Corn (C4 grass, yield, anatomy)• Pre 1973 method of subsidizing corn farmers vs. Post 1973 method of subsidizing corn farmers• Consequences of cheap corn policy• Domestications are rare• Other concepts: French Paradox, Food chains, Eating as an ecological and a political act, Natural Food (what is natural?), Industrial Food, More

calories in than out, Naylor Curve• Consolidation of farms, changing demographics• Diseases from food (difference between Viruses, Bacteria, Prions, Multi-cell parasites)• Definitions of “Organic” (Big, Small, Beyond Organic)• Positive and negative consequences of “Industrial Organic”

Transition to College:• Differences between College and High School (in terms of reading, writing, studying, use of language, and being a good student)• Predatory Reading, Ways of Reading• Process of writing, different stages involved in good writing

Other:• Know the main class policies presented in the syllabus

Topics ContinuedOur Food System (continued):• Livestock’s impact on the environment• Complex Issues in Agriculture (know arguments given for and against in terms of Sustainability)

– Local Food, Eating Meat, No-Till Chemical Farming, Nitrogen Fertilizers, GMOs + Organic, GMOs• Issues from Food Inc.

– Veil between consumer and how food is produced– Hidden costs of cheap food– Factory Model applied to farming, processed foods, and fast food– Increased concentration of food producers—power of large corporations

• Labor issues (poor, undocumented, non-union, racial minorities) • Farmer debt, pressure to stay quiet, probations on saving seed, bullying by legal teams• Political corruption and revolving door policies• Food safety, Kevin’s Law (to give USDA authority to shut down plants)

• Consumer choices as a way of voting• Slow Food Movement• Obesity epidemic (Be sure to read “Why are we so fat?” and “Big Food vs. Big Insurance”)

– Competing explanations• Evolution: designed for high calorie, fatty, sugary, salty foods• Cheapness of (unhealthy) food• Food chemically engineered to increase consumption• More effective marketing of food, e.g., super-sizing• Elasticity of human appetite (relying on external cues)

– Healthcare costs of obesity

Social Engineering Leverage Points (Know examples of each for agriculture and for water)• Policy: Legislation, regulation, standards & guidance.• Economic or Financial Stimulus: Subsidies, creating markets, pricing, grants and loans, investment• Technology: Encouraging inventions, adoption of new technology, wide scale implementation

Water:• Water Cycle (main parts and processes)• Issue of water privatization (arguments for and against)• The Cochabamba, Bolivia example• Issues surrounding bottled water

– Quality, effects of extraction on communities, disposal of plastic bottles• Disparity of safe drinking water availability across the globe• Water consumption habits and which have greatest effect on Water Footprints

Assignments / Activities

– HW0: Attend Public Sustainability Event and Write About It– HW1: Sustainability Artifact Assignment– HW2: Sustainability Artifact Revision– HW3: Typical Meal– HW4: Your Personal Food Policy– In Class Debates; Group Presentations

• (e.g. Causal Maps for “Cheap Corn”)

– Two Midterms– Water Footprint Report (with draft)– Group Project: Sustainability in Portland and at PSU

• Individual Annotated Bibliography and Group Presentation

– Final Reflection Essay

Film / Video, Fieldtrip, Guests

• Movie Night (Food Inc.) • Sustainability Tour• Class Field Trip to Zenger Farm • Library Visit• Michael Shermer founder of Skeptical Society (

TED Talk)• Svankmajer’s Lunch (Thesis Revisions and

Topic Sentences) • Blue Gold (selections from)• Jacob Sherman and Lisa (Take Back the Tap)

Readings– The Transition to College Writing, Keith Hjortshoj– Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollen– Biotech's Plan to Sustain Agriculture (Sci American interview)– Reconciling livestock and environment (FAO of the United

Nations)– The problem of what to eat. (Conservation Magazine)– Sell the rain: How the privatization of water caused riots in

Cochabamba, Bolivia ( CBC Radio)– Water Revolt Timeline (Frontline, PBS) (June 2002)– Who Will Bring Water to the Bolivian Poor? (New York Times)– What's in Your Water Bottle? (Frontline, PBS) (optional)– Letter From Bolivia: Leasing the Rain, (The New Yorker)

(optional)– Big Food vs Big Insurance (New York Times, Pollan)– Why Are We So Fat (The New Yorker, Kolbert)

Some Abstract Concepts

• Ways of Knowing– Scientific Method– Mental Biases: Analogy between optical illusions and mental

illusion

• Open and Closed Systems• Matter / Energy / Information• Positive and Negative Feedbacks • Types of Disease Causing Agents (what is alive?)• Social Engineering • Basic Rights vs. Needs• Complex notion of “Sustainability”

Additional Movies to See

• King Corn

• Flow

• Blue Gold

• The Future of Food

• GMO’s in Hawaii

• Mean 43.2/50; Median 43.5/50• 24/32 (75%) same or improved score

Midterms (1 & 2) Score Distribution

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

95 -100 90-94.9 85-89.9 80-84.9 75-79.9 70-74.9 < 70

% correct

cou

nt MT 1

MT2

Future

• Next term texts: – Kolbert, Elizabeth. (2006). Field Notes From

a Catastrophe. New York: Bloomsbury – Diamond, Jared M. (2005). Collapse: How

Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Penguin Books

• Reason to stay in school

• Reasons to live more Sustainably.......

Happy Holidays!