Dr Ros Sambell
Dr Ros Sambell
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Senior Lecturer, Nutrition Discipline Lead (Research Profile)
School of Medical and Health Sciences
Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia
Qualifications: PhD (2023); MPH (2013); Grad Dip Public Health (2012); NSA Registered Public Health Nutritionist
Contact details: P: +61 8 6304 5424 E: r.sambell@ecu.edu.au
About Me
Areas of research interest (related to sustainable food systems)
Sustainable food environments in early childhood settings; food systems transformation; regenerative and place-based agriculture; food security and food literacy; work-integrated learning fostering global citizenship in graduates
How long has your affiliated tertiary institution offered sustainable food systems education?
15 Years
What was the process for getting sustainable food systems education into your curriculum?
Integrated progressively into existing units rather than as a standalone offering, driven by research interests and real-world practice needs in community
Which course(s)/degree(s) and year level(s) contain(s) sustainable food systems education?
I am involved in teaching food system principles in the Bachelor of Health Science (Nutrition Major), however, this topic is not limited to these units or this course in the university.
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
Is this content compulsory or an elective?
Compulsory/Electives
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)
Yes, includes an assessed micro-placement in community nutrition organisations, many working within food systems contexts
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.
The micro-placement paired with structured reflection using the Relational Employability Framework and Gibbs' Reflective Cycle in a third year undergraduate degree. Students engage directly with community food systems challenges and critically examine their role within them.
Showcase of Ros' SFS Learning & Teaching Activities
Case Study: Building Food Systems Thinking in Nutrition Students: From Micro-Placement Evidence to Structured Scaffolding
In a third year Community Nutrition unit, students complete an assessed micro-placement with community organisations, including early childhood education and care services, local government organisations, and university-based community groups. Students design and deliver a nutrition education session to their placement organisation, then complete a critical written reflection using the Relational Employability Framework (REF) and Gibbs' Reflective Cycle.
The REF encourages students to reflect across three dimensions: Foundational Career Development and Identities, Interactions with Others, and Contributions to Local and Global Challenges, the last of which encompasses environmental sustainability and food systems thinking.
A published case study of this approach (Cook and Sambell, 2025, International Journal of Work-Integrated Learning) provided an honest and useful evidence base. While the micro-placement successfully built students' professional confidence and skills, reflections were heavily weighted toward personal career development (55% of themes). Engagement with food systems and sustainability was the least represented dimension, with only 11% of themes addressing local and global challenges. Students could describe their placement experience well, but rarely connected it to broader systemic or sustainability concerns.
Rather than treating this as a failure, the findings were used as a design prompt. They confirmed what many educators suspect: experiential learning alone does not automatically produce food systems thinking. Students need explicit scaffolding, structured prompts, and curriculum-embedded support to make those connections visible and meaningful.
In direct response, the Relational Employability Matrix (REM) was developed (Sambell, 2025, Edith Cowan University). The REM translates the three REF dimensions into 30 specific skills, each mapped across five development stages. It gives students a practical, self-directed tool to assess where they are and identify concrete next steps, including in systems thinking, sustainability, cultural competence, and ethical leadership. Critically, it makes the food systems dimension of professional practice visible and assessable, rather than incidental.
In the classroom, the REM can scaffold discussion before, during, and after placement/or class assessments, helping students explicitly locate food systems and sustainability within their developing professional identity. For educators, it offers a means to identify patterns across cohorts and design targeted curriculum responses.
The REM is available and adaptable across university, community, and workplace settings. For nutrition and dietetics educators seeking practical tools to deepen students' food systems engagement, it offers a research-grounded, low-burden starting point, one developed directly from evidence of where students' thinking stalls and designed to develop global citizenship in nutrition graduates.
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