The Food and the Garden FIG is a very hands-on FIG that looks at the intersection between food and productive landscapes. Working together, we will explore the various traditions of garden making and how food shapes our community. This is primarily an outdoor FIG that takes place at the UO Urban Farm and includes fun garden activities such as planting, harvesting and pressing cider from apples grown on the farm. It is really a celebration of autumn in the northwest.
Deep-Dive FIG: This FIG is part of the food cluster, which includes multiple field trips and hands-on events. This course has been vetted by First Year Programs to ensure first-term students can achieve success. The instructor will be available to assist students along the way.
Students explore the intersection of topics by taking the following course package:
UGST 109 First-Year Experience Seminar - 1-credit
LA 260 Understanding Landscapes - CoreEd or major satisfying course, 4-credits
This course presents a richly illustrated overview of the relationships between human cultures and their gardens and other designed landscapes. Students study a broad range of gardens, parks and memorials, as well as a few civic landscapes. These places exemplify both the distinctive characteristics of many world cultures and themes found in the creation of special multi-cultural landscapes. Gardens are studied as metaphors for the human cultural ideas they seek to express and nurture. Students learn about the structure and pattern of designed landscapes, the history of environmental policies and values that affect them, and the ways that landscape designs are understood and described.
ENVS 225 Introduction to Food Studies - CoreEd or major satisfying course, 4-credits
This course provides an introduction to the emerging interdisciplinary "field" of food studies and an introduction to the place of food in society. Using a comparative global perspective, we will explore the complex ways in which our foodways have emerged and explore the roles food plays at present. We will examine large-scale patterns and as well as the more intimate ways we engage or experience food in our daily lives. We will address key questions such as: Why use food as lens on society? How did the food system we have today develop? With what effects on the environment and our health? How does food help create meaning and identity for people in different cultural contexts? Why do some people (continue to) struggle to get enough food, while others eat so much that it makes them sick? What does the future hold for our engagement with food? What roles can or should we play in the food realm going forward?