Browsing by Author "Stein, Mary"

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Barriers and Opportunities: Specialty Cultivated Mushroom Production in the United States
(MDPI, 2022-10) Moxley, Alexandria; Ebel, Roland; Cripps, Cathy L.; Austin, Caroline Graham; Stein, Mary; Winder, Meaghan
Producing and consuming specialty cultivated mushrooms (SCMs), cultivated mushrooms outside of the Agaricus genus, has the potential to positively impact sustainable food systems. Few studies have examined consumer perceptions of SCMs and industry-wide trends of SCM production in the United States (US), despite the USD 66.1 million in SCM sales in the US during 2020. This study looked at the barriers to and opportunities for cultivating, marketing, and consuming SCMs in the US by conducting a producer survey with SCM facilities in the US (n = 63). Survey results found diversification across products and practices within the SCM industry and on an individual business level. The most common place SCM growers sold their products was farmers’ markets (n = 63). The majority (53%) of growers (n = 60) used diverse (four or more) approaches to advertise their products. The majority of SCM growers (57%) indicated they had participated in a community outreach event in the past five years to help promote their SCM products (n = 63). Findings indicate there are opportunities for greater SCM business owner diversity. Our results indicate that production of SCMs may support economic, environmentally, and socio-culturally sustainable food systems and that there is further room for increased sustainability across the industry.
Co-design of Adaptable Learning Outcomes for Sustainable Food Systems Undergraduate Education
(2020-09) Ebel, Roland; Ahmed, Selena; Valley, Will; Jordan, Nicholas; Grossman, Julie; Byker Shanks, Carmen; Stein, Mary; Rogers, Mary; Dring, Colin
Higher education institutions are increasingly offering Sustainable Food Systems (SFS) degree programs in response to societal demand for training a professional food systems workforce. As a relatively young field, there is a need for clearly articulated learning outcomes (LOs) for SFS education to define student learning through degree programs, design new programs, and evaluate and modify existing programs. New and established SFS programs are often fragmented over multiple academic departments which impedes the development of a coherent and holistic curriculum for approaching the complexity of food topics. Here, we address these needs through the co-creation of adaptable LOs for Baccalaureate degree-level SFS programs which are aligned to a SFS Signature Pedagogy and based on outcomes-based education toward contributing to a solid conceptual basis for SFS education. The SFS Signature Pedagogy is a framework that can be applied to develop students' systemic capacities, including holistic, and pluralistic ways of understanding sustainability challenges, multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinarity, experiential learning, and collective action projects. Our co-design of LOs was based on qualitative content analysis of existing LOs of established SFS programs, a cross-sectional survey with SFS educators and refinement of LOs from feedback in an expert panel. This process resulted in the eight adaptable LOs: (1) systems thinking, (2) critical reflection, (3) diverse ways of knowing, (4) practical application, (5) multi-context communication, (6) teamwork, (7) collective action, and, (8) advocacy for SFS. We anticipate the adaptable LOs proposed here to be applicable for diverse student communities and geographic respectively cultural contexts as well as to provide insight for sustainability-related academic programs toward developing professionals equipped with skills and capacities to address complex challenges.
Co-design of Adaptable Learning Outcomes for Sustainable Food Systems Undergraduate Education
(2020-09) Ebel, Roland; Ahmed, Selena; Valley, Will; Jordan, Nicholas; Grossman, Julie; Byker Shanks, Carmen; Stein, Mary; Rogers, Mary; Dring, Colin
Higher education institutions are increasingly offering Sustainable Food Systems (SFS) degree programs in response to societal demand for training a professional food systems workforce. As a relatively young field, there is a need for clearly articulated learning outcomes (LOs) for SFS education to define student learning through degree programs, design new programs, and evaluate and modify existing programs. New and established SFS programs are often fragmented over multiple academic departments which impedes the development of a coherent and holistic curriculum for approaching the complexity of food topics. Here, we address these needs through the co-creation of adaptable LOs for Baccalaureate degree-level SFS programs which are aligned to a SFS Signature Pedagogy and based on outcomes-based education toward contributing to a solid conceptual basis for SFS education. The SFS Signature Pedagogy is a framework that can be applied to develop students' systemic capacities, including holistic, and pluralistic ways of understanding sustainability challenges, multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinarity, experiential learning, and collective action projects. Our co-design of LOs was based on qualitative content analysis of existing LOs of established SFS programs, a cross-sectional survey with SFS educators and refinement of LOs from feedback in an expert panel. This process resulted in the eight adaptable LOs: (1) systems thinking, (2) critical reflection, (3) diverse ways of knowing, (4) practical application, (5) multi-context communication, (6) teamwork, (7) collective action, and, (8) advocacy for SFS. We anticipate the adaptable LOs proposed here to be applicable for diverse student communities and geographic respectively cultural contexts as well as to provide insight for sustainability-related academic programs toward developing professionals equipped with skills and capacities to address complex challenges.
Scaffolding collective agency curriculum within food-systems education programs
(Frontiers Media SA, 2023-05) Jordan, Nicholas R.; Valley, Will; Donovan, Dennis; Clegg, Daniel J.; Grossman, Julie; Hunt, Natalie; Michaels, Thomas; Peterson, Hikaru; Rogers, Mary A.; Sames, Amanda; Stein, Mary
Collective agency (CA) can be defined as the shared understanding, will, and ability of a heterogenous group to take action and work together toward a common goal. We are motivated by the premise that CA is central to meeting the challenges inherent to 21st century food systems. These challenges include maintaining sustainable agricultural production and meeting nutritional needs of a growing population while protecting the climate, wildlife, soil, air and water quality, and enhancing equity, inclusion and justice for those who work in or engage with these systems. Given the importance of CA in food systems, university programs focused on food systems must address it. To date, despite many calls for higher education to build skills in CA, implementation has been minimal. Single courses addressing CA exist in some program-level curricula, but we know of no previous efforts in food-systems degree programs to systematically cultivate CA across their curriculum through scaffolding, i.e., interconnection and integration of learning activities across courses, so as to enhance their complementarity and impact. We (a consortium of university faculty building food systems curricula, located at University of British Columbia, Montana State University, and University of Minnesota) developed our approach to teaching CA through an action-research process, conducted during 2019–2022. In this paper, we report on our process and outline an emergent conceptual model of a curriculum for CA that can be embedded within broader, program-level food systems curricula. We describe its elements and share our experiences in implementing these elements. We conclude by describing current efforts to further develop CA curricula in the context of food-systems degree programs.