Spring 2025 courses related to food systems
Each semester, faculty across Duke offer courses on topics connected to the food system. This makes it possible for students to customize their studies and incorporate their interest in food systems issues into their majors and certificate programs.
Bass Connections Year-long Project Team. Topics vary depending on semester and section. Teams of undergraduate and graduate students work with faculty to investigate how race intersects with various aspects of society and lived experience. Teams often work with external experts and partners. A team’s work may run in parallel with or contribute to an on-going research project. Teams will participate in seminars, data collection and analysis, field work and other learning experiences relevant to the project. Requires final paper or product containing significant analysis and interpretation. Instructor consent required.
Short-term, mini-seminars on food security aspects of International Development Policy.
The U.S. food supply is a series of intersecting actors: farmers, food processors, food retailers, and consumers. However, these actors are in a complex system of policies such as the U.S. Farm Bill, which includes agricultural support programs, nutrition policies, and environmental regulations. Beyond the policy realm, for-profit (agribusiness and food manufacturers) and non-profit (food banks and faith-based organizations) actors engage and respond to this food system. Informed by systems thinking, the goal of the course is to provide learners with tools to understand and engage the U.S. food system. This course aims to help learners become critical analysts of the food system so that they can become informed workers for positive change in the food system. This course is grounded in economics, though students do not need an economics background, situated in a multidisciplinary approach. An important outcome of this course is for students to develop skills in interpreting and communicating policies shaping the food system. Though many of the learners may have limited training in policy analysis, the structure of the course is to give these students the skills and tools to conduct a relevant analysis of the food system that is appropriate for their field of study.…
This course will consider the various ways churches can address the leading environmental crisis of our time: global warming, species and biodiversity loss, food and water, habitat loss, pollution, etc. Various models of care (stewardship, priesthood, and virtue) and church practice (education, liturgy, and mission) will be considered and developed. This course has two meeting patterns. Immersion Week: (1/6/25 – 1/10/25) MTWThF 12:50PM – 2:30PM Synchronous sessions W 11:45AM – 1:00PM within the dates of 1/20/25-3/31/25 Open to DIV students This course will have pre-work due on or around the first day of class.
Surveys history of various forms of capitalism in the United States, with focus on changing labor systems and labor relations, banking and finance, business enterprise and strategies, agriculture, government economic policy (including regulatory policy), and intellectual history of capitalism and its reformers.
Explore international policies to manage marine fisheries and end overfishing, with an emphasis on key principles and concepts agreed in the policies, and the challenges they aim to address. Overview of major international policies guiding where and how national governments manage marine fisheries & collaborations to manage shared and high seas fisheries. Policies & key challenges will be illustrated through case studies. Guest experts from United Nations Food and Agriculture will discuss current topics & efforts to implement policies. Principles and concepts underpinning fisheries mgmt. worldwide & major intl. policy instruments to challenges to ending overfishing.
Theories and practices of sustainability explored with application to the campus environment, including economic, social and environmental factors, and a local to global reach. The Duke campus is used as a case study to illustrate institutional practices including building design and operations, utility supply and consumption, carbon offsets design and calculation, transportation, water, sustainability education and communication, behavior change, waste production and recycling, and procurement. In a service-learning project, students might perform sustainability inventories and cost/benefit analyses, or gather behavior change data.
An overview of the major environmental legislation in the United States. Topics include: air and water pollution, hazardous waste, agriculture, wildlife, and institutions. Political, economic, ethical, and scientific analysis. Open to juniors or seniors or by consent of instructor.
The gut microbiome is everywhere these days, but do you wonder why and how? This course uses active learning focused on the evolution and ecology of the gut microbiome. Students will gain familiarity with the hologenome theory of evolution, comparative gut morphology, nutritional ecology, dysbiosis, and common microbiome methods. Students will practice reading primary literature, asking questions of real data, interpreting results, writing and revising a scientific paper, and using science communication. Course goals are to demystify the process of basic gut microbiome science and emphasize microbial roles in animal lives. This course fulfills the ‘Ecology Requirement’ for the Biology major.