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An immersive, comparative approach to experiential learning in food studies education

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Abstract

Experiential learning in food and agricultural higher education takes many different forms. This paper highlights an immersive, comparative approach to a graduate food studies course in the dairy sector. It explores how students in this class experience a particular combination of field trips, culinary workshops, hands-on activities, and classroom discussions, and explores how the structure and combination of these course elements contributes to reflection, critical thought, and a more nuanced and complex understanding of food systems (or not). Results suggest that this intensive compare/contrast approach to field trips and applied experiences, accompanied by multiple venues for in-depth verbal and written reflection on these experiences, can help facilitate (1) self-reflection, critical thinking, and broader systems thinking, (2) an understanding of and empathy towards conflicting views on food systems issues, and (3) an acceptance of and ability to work across differences, within the contradictions and complications that characterize food systems work.

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Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to my colleague Chris Murakami for his collaboration, input, and feedback during the full trajectory of this project, to my colleague Alice Julier for her feedback on earlier drafts, and to my other colleagues for their invaluable thoughts and ideas. Thanks also to research assistant Bradley Barrow for her help with interviewing, and to the students and field trip hosts who participated in and contributed to this course over the years, in particular the 2018 group who took part in or were in the class concurrent with the data collection used for this project.

Declarations: Partial financial support for this study was provided by Chatham University’s research and sabbatical fund in 2019. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Chatham University in 2018. Nadine Lehrer is both the researcher for this study and the teacher of record for the class profiled in this paper.

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  1. Food Studies, Chatham University, Eden Hall Campus, 6035 Ridge Rd. Gibsonia, Pittsburgh, PA, 15044, USA

    Nadine Lehrer

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Lehrer, N. An immersive, comparative approach to experiential learning in food studies education. Agric Hum Values 41, 61–73 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-023-10466-y

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