Dr Stephanie Godrich

Areas of research interest (related to sustainable food systems)

Dr Stephanie Godrich works with cross-sector interest holders in fields such as food production, health promotion, nutrition and dietetics, town planning, community development, social work and education to take a systemic innovation approach to supporting regional food systems, to achieve food security. Her teaching reflects this, by helping students to see the ‘system’ of food systems initiatives and the various actors involved. 

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

Since 2018

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

The ‘Food Vision’ unit was developed to focus on different food systems aspects, with one assessment including a live interview with a food systems actor about their initiative, mapping using online systems change software to identify gaps and strengths, co-designing action plans, and recommendations to strengthen the initiatives. Another assessment includes a live team debate about a food systems topic. 

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

Master of Public Health Unit

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

This is one stand-alone unit

Is this content compulsory or an elective?

Elective

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, assessed criteria includes interviewing a food system actor, or an internal university research team member working on food systems projects. 

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.

Experiential interviews and the live debate, so students immerse themselves in real world activities about the topic/content, but in a practical way to develop transferrable skills to research or practice work in their future careers.