Baltimore Food Systems: A Case Study of Urban Food Environments
Baltimore Food Systems: A Case Study of Urban Food Environments has just been added to JHSPH OpenCourseWare. Taught by Anne Palmer and Roni Neff of the Center for a Livable Future, this course challenges students to look closely at the environment of Baltimore City's complex food systems and to consider what it would take to improve these systems to assure access for all to nutritious, adequate, affordable, and sustainably produced food.
Although most courses on OCW are lecture-based didactic courses, Baltimore Food Systems is built around a series of field trips, projects, and classroom discussions. Many instructors of seminar-style courses like this one are hesitant to contribute to OCW out of a concern that they don't have a sufficient amount of OCW-ready content, but Baltimore Food Systems demonstrates that this isn't necessarily true. The course includes a syllabus, a reading list, and instructions for completing an oral history project and a final term paper. It also includes four lists of brainstormed questions prepared for the field trip sites: a Baltimore corner market, a supermarket, a fast food restaurant, and a food bank.