Lesson FS4: Food Security as a System

Objectives

What Students Learn:

• Students learn the 14 habits of a systems thinker and the 6 steps used to analyze systems, along with strategies for illustrating systems.
• They identify interactions in the food security system as well as the “tipping points” that lead to irreversible change.

What Students Do:

• Students relate systems thinking habits to everyday situations,
• use a variety of diagrams to visualize systems,
• work collaboratively to create a large causal loop diagram of food security, and
• evaluate the stability of our food production system by assessing interactions, feedback loops, and tipping points.

Instructions

The goal of this lesson is to encourage students to look at the topic of food security using a systems approach, and to evaluate the stability of our global food production by assessing the interactions within the system. Students will review the definition of a system and discuss how approaching a problem or issue by modeling it as a system can lead to both improved understanding and more effective problem-solving. The lesson includes an overview of different methods used to visually represent systems-level problems, and students practice using these models to illustrate food security. Students will ultimately apply their knowledge of the concept of food security and the stakeholders involved to create a large causal loop diagram that helps them visualize interactions within the system, feedback loops, and tipping points. This activity will help students evaluate the sustainability of our food supply and the vulnerability of particular groups to food insecurity.

FOR EDUCATORS

Please use this Complete Food Security (FS) Module link to access the most up-to-date version of our Food Security Curriculum Module (last updated 02/23/2023). If you would like to further field test or optimize these lessons, please email us at see@isbscience.org.

Assessment

This lesson follows the FS Pre/post-assessment (Google Doc | Word Doc), Lesson FS1: Introduction to Food Security , Lesson FS2: Critically Evaluating Food Production Techniques, the FS APPLICATION 1, and Lesson FS3: Who Cares? Stakeholders! (p. 16). Please consider sending electronic versions of any student work to see@isbscience.org.

Resources

For your convenience, the following are quick links to the resources required for Lesson FS4: Food Security as a System (p. 23-25).

• Food_Security_Vocabulary PowerPoint (Google Slide | PowerPoint)
• Example systems network diagram
• Is it a system? Worksheet from Page Keeley (Science Formative Assessment, Keeley 2009)

• Habits of a Systems Thinker from Waters Foundation handout (Waters Foundation 2017)
• “S.T.O.P. Coffee Crutch Story” handout
• “Building Your Case” worksheet (at end of Lesson FS1 document)