Dr Clare Pettinger

Areas of research interest (related to sustainable food systems)

Clare is actively engaged in community-focussed research around food systems, poverty and social justice. She is passionate about public engagement and radical creative approaches to tackle local (and global) health, (in)equality and social well-being challenges.

How long has your affiliated tertiary institution offered sustainable food systems education?

Over 10 years

What was the process for getting sustainable food systems education into your curriculum?

I advocated hard for this agenda over the years and worked with the UK’s professional body (The British Dietetic Association) to champion this via One Blue Dot (2018). As a result, I managed to embed an entire ‘Leadership Roles for Sustainability’ 20 credit module into the curriculum for final year dietetic learners at the University of Plymouth

Which course(s)/degree(s) and year level(s) contain(s) sustainable food systems education?

BSc Dietetics at the University of Plymouth UK 

Are the learning and teaching activities integrated across multiple units/courses/modules and year levels or delivered as a stand-alone unit/course/module?

Integrated (via one core module) but there are other elements of delivery for nutrition/dietetic/Allied Health Profession learners that involved sustainable food systems, food policy and food security which consolidate this topic in its broadest context. An example of a local (research informed) case study which is used to share ‘good practice’ in local, circular, food system visioning is the Plymouth Fish Finger (see film below). 

Is this content compulsory or an elective?

Compulsory/core 

Do you include experiential learning and teaching activities? (Please note: these can be on or off-campus, and part of the assessed curricula or a voluntary offering)

The module is delivered by a range of expert (nutrition/Dietetic) ‘leaders’ who share their expertise and insights. It also involves an imaginative assessment whereby learners need to ‘design a more sustainable area of dietetic practice’ (in any professional context) enabling them to draw on a broad range of experiences and evidence to apply this to their future practice.

Similarly, as part of research informed education practice, Clare has co-developed a toolkit which forms part of critical learning tasks for students – the toolkit features practical guidance for working with communities and other collaborators in a more inclusive way to more fairly transform the food system 

Which learning and teaching activity(s) would you consider to be your most effective to facilitate a deep learning amongst students? These can be in-class, assessment tasks, field trips, volunteer opportunities, etc.

We cover topics such as ‘planetary health’; ‘systems thinking’; ‘climate anxiety’ and ‘change leadership’ but the best sessions for learners are the ones where they need to creatively imagine future scenarios, to support their learning. One such session, which is enjoyable for the learners is entitled ‘cathedral thinking’ whereby learners vision for a better, more resilient sustainable food system in the local area (using collage materials, magazines and other creative approaches).