Food, energy and water (FEW) systems are inextricably linked, and thus, solutions to FEW nexus challenges, including water and food insecurity, require an interconnected science and policy approach framed in systems thinking. To drive these solutions, we developed an interdisciplinary, experiential graduate education program focused on innovations at the FEW nexus. As part of our program, PhD students complete a two-course sequence: (1) an experiential introduction to innovations at the FEW nexus and (2) a data practicum. The two courses are linked through an interdisciplinary FEW systems research project that begins during the first course and is completed at the end of the second course. Project deliverables include research manuscripts, grant proposals, policy memos, and outreach materials. Topics addressed in these projects include building electrification to reduce reliance on fossil fuels for heating, agrivoltaic farming to combat FEW vulnerabilities in the southwestern United States, assessment of food choices to influence sustainable dining practices, and understanding the complexities of FEW nexus research and training at the university level. Evaluation data were generated from our first three student cohorts (
Alignment among environmental programs in higher education: What Food-Energy-Water Nexus concepts are covered in introductory courses?
Interdisciplinary environmental and sustainability (IES) programs are different from other fields because they focus on a complex integration of humanities, social, and natural sciences concepts centered on the interactions of coupled human and natural systems. The interdisciplinary nature of IES programs does not lend itself to traditional discipline-specific concept inventory frameworks for critically evaluating preconceptions and learning. We discuss the results of the first phase of a research project to develop a next generation concept inventory for evaluating interdisciplinary concepts important for introductory IES courses. Using the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) Nexus (the intersections/interdependencies of food, energy, and water sectors) as our focus, we conducted a content analysis of eight representative college-level introductory environmental course syllabi and course materials (e.g., textbooks, journal articles, print media) to identify common interdisciplinary FEW Nexus concepts taught in introductory IES courses. Results demonstrate that all IES introductory course materials reference the FEW Nexus. Food, energy, and/or water resources as individual elements of the FEW Nexus are frequently described, but connections between these resource systems are included less often. Biology, energy systems, waste and pollution in the natural environment, agriculture, earth sciences and geology, climate change, behavioral social sciences, and economics concepts are most associated with FEW concepts, hinting at commonalities across IES topics that anchor systems thinking. Despite differences in IES programs, there appears to be some alignment between core concepts being taught at the FEW Nexus in introductory courses.
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- PAR ID:
- 10430897
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Geoscience Education
- ISSN:
- 1089-9995
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 18
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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n = 33 students) using a mixed method, multi-informant evaluation approach, including the administration of an adapted version of a validated pre-post-survey to collect baseline and end-of-semester data. The survey assessed student confidence in the following example areas: communication, collaboration, and interdisciplinary research skills. Overall, students reported confidence growth in utilizing interdisciplinary research methods (e.g., synthesize the approaches and tools from multiple disciplines to evaluate and address a research problem), collaborating with range of professionals and communicating their research results to diverse audience. The growth in confidence in the surveyed areas aligned with the learning objectives for the two-course sequence, and the interdisciplinary project experience was continually improved based on student feedback. This two-course sequence represents one successful approach for educators to rethink the traditional siloed approach of training doctoral students working at the FEW nexus. -
Concept maps have emerged as a valid and reliable method for assessing deep conceptual understanding in engineering education within disciplines as well as interdisciplinary knowledge integration across disciplines. Most work on concept maps, however, focuses on undergraduates. In this paper, we use concept maps to examine changes in graduate students’ conceptual understanding and knowledge integration resulting from an interdisciplinary graduate program. Our study context is pair of foundational, team-taught courses in an interdisciplinary Disaster Resilience and Risk Management (DRRM) graduate program. The courses include a 3-hour research course and a 1-hour seminar that aim to build student understanding within and across Urban Affairs and Planning, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Geosciences, and Business Information Technology. The courses introduce core principles of DRRM and relevant research methods in these disciplines, and drive students to understand the intersections of these disciplines in the context of planning for and responding to natural and human-made disasters. To understand graduate student growth from disciplinary-based to interdisciplinary scholars, we pose the research questions: 1) In what ways do graduate students’ understandings of DRRM change as a result of their introduction to an interdisciplinary graduate research program? and 2) To what extent and in what ways do concept maps serve as a tool to capture interdisciplinary learning in this context? Data includes pre/post concept maps centered on disaster resilience and risk management, a one-page explanation of the post-concept map, and ethnographic field notes gathered from class and faculty meetings. Pre-concept maps were collected on the first day of class; post-concept maps will be collected as part of the final course assignment. We assess the students’ concept maps for depth of conceptual understanding within disciplines and interdisciplinary competency across disciplines, using the field notes to provide explanatory context. The results presented in this paper support the inclusion of an explanation component to concept maps, and also suggest that concept maps alone may not be the best measure of student understanding of concepts within and across disciplines in this specific context. If similar programs wish to use concept maps as an assessment method, we suggest the inclusion of an explanation component and suggest providing explicit instructions that specify the intended audience. We also suggest using a holistic scoring method, as it is more likely to capture nuances in the concept maps than traditional scoring methods, which focus solely on counting factors like hierarchies and number of cross-links.more » « less
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null (Ed.)Sustainable provisioning of energy to society requires consideration of the nexus between food–energy–water (FEW) flows while meeting human needs and respecting nature's capacity to provide goods and services. In this work, we explore the FEW nexus of conventional and techno-ecologically synergistic (TES) systems by evaluating combinations of various technological, agricultural, and ecological strategies from the viewpoints of electricity generation, food production, life cycle water use, carbon footprint, nutrient runoff, corporate profitability, and societal well-being. We evaluate activities related to power generation (coal and gas extraction and use, transportation options, cooling technologies, solar panels, wind turbines), food production (farming with and without tillage), waste utilization (carbon dioxide capture and conversion to hydrocarbons, green hydrogen), and ecological restoration (forests and wetlands). Application of this framework to the Muskingum River watershed in Ohio, U.S.A. indicates that seeking synergies between human and natural systems can provide innovative solutions that improve the FEW nexus while making positive contributions to society with greater respect for nature's limits. We show that the conventional engineering approach of relying only on technological approaches for meeting sustainability objectives can have limited environmental and societal benefits while reducing profitability. In contrast, techno-ecologically synergistic design between agricultural systems and wetlands can reduce nutrient runoff with little compromise in other goals. Additional synergies between farming and photovoltaic systems along with the use of wetlands can further improve the FEW nexus while reducing CO 2 and nutrient emissions, with a relatively small compromise in corporate profitability. These results should motivate further work on innovative TES designs that can provide “win–win” solutions for meeting global energy needs in an environmentally and socially beneficial manner.more » « less
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Abstract As future decision-makers, students must develop interdisciplinary, systems thinking skills to make effective management decisions; however, systems thinking remains challenging for many students. Here, we use the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) Nexus as a framework to examine how drawings can help students cultivate systems thinking skills. Drawings can be tools to make implicit mental models of systems connections explicit for instructors to better comprehend student learning. Our goal was to understand how drawing can help students make connections across systems compared to using only verbal explanations. In 2021, we interviewed undergraduates, asking them to draw and verbally explain the FEW Nexus. Analysis revealed that student drawings showed an increase in the number of connections that half of students could describe when compared to verbal-only explanations. Instructors may benefit from this study by recognizing areas where students might struggle to understand FEW Nexus connections, where additional course emphasis is needed, and how drawings can help assess student learning.
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2023.2187680
