Global food security/GFS101/Overview

Global Food Security is one micro-course (short course) from a suite of Micro Courses developed by the University of Tasmania. These micro-courses are 1/3 of an award course (full course) that a typical student would enrol in at the University of Tasmania. These courses have been designed to allow learners to engage and sample learning from a higher education institution before deciding on their next step. Remembering all learning on OERu is free and assessments are always optional.

Course Description

Welcome to 'The Challenge of Global Food Security'!

The challenge of ensuring adequate and sustainable food production and equitable access to food for a diverse human population in the 21st century is crucial and profoundly complex. This unit explores the complex and pressing challenge of Global Food Security (GFS). The unit is inter-disciplinary and covers environmental, technical, economic, cultural, political and moral questions. The interdisciplinary skills and knowledge developed in the unit are relevant to all citizens and professions. This open and non-assessable unit represents Module 1 of larger 1st-year unit delivered through the University of Tasmania's, Diploma of Sustainable Living.

The unit helps you develop critical thinking and an appreciation of diverse approaches as GFS contains many confounding issues and perspectives.

You will be introduced to vitally important problems, such as those related to hunger, obesity, resource scarcity, poverty, population growth, justice, and sustainability. Throughout this 4 week unit, we hope that you will engage with and participate in constructive debates on these controversial topics through a series of prompting questions asked at the end of each week's content. The questions will be linked to discussion boards where you will be able to post your answers and collaborate with peers and learn from their responses.