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Course Description

Summary

Calling all food innovators, catalysts and designers: this three-week module is for students interested in the process of developing creative solutions and ventures in response to real societal needs. Specific areas of investigation and action will be driven by participant interest; topics and projects may include sustainable food production and land use, hunger, obesity, food justice, clean water access and preservation and waste stream stewardship, as well as other food and water-related work. Whether you’re interested in starting a community garden, leading a social movement against bottled water, creating a hunger relief program or raising a barn, this module is for you. Participants are invited, as individuals or as teams, to enter the workshop with a specific social or environmental issue or area of interest, from campus or community-based needs to national and global challenges. Through the workshop participants will go through the creative process of identifying a specific societal need and developing a solution from idea to launch. Participants will conduct primary research, employ a range of strategic planning and design tools and explore a spectrum of organizational models and funding strategies to move projects forward. At the completion of the module, participants will present their projects to a panel of practitioners and get feedback. The workshop can be used as a way to gain experience by forwarding a hypothetical project, as a launch pad to develop a real venture, or as a vehicle to take an existing project to the next level. In the past students have used the toolkit from this module to run a profitable crepe stand at the Bennington Farmer’s Market, launch a student-led produce gleaning organization, publish a dining hall wok station cookbook, and develop a sustainable food distribution network pilot program in West Africa.