Interdisciplinary Model for Infusing Food Security into STEM Curriculum

Integrating applied learning and research experiences into the curriculum at any academic level represents hands-on, student-centered learning at its best. It provides expanded opportunities for instructional innovations and faculty-student mentorships that can both translate to the classroom and extend beyond the classroom. Here we propose an interdisciplinary, comprehensive, and immersive approach to integrating service-learning and research into the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) classroom by devising the infrastructure necessary for students to have the opportunity to actively participate in a local food security network. Presented here are two examples of experiential-learning activities integrated into STEM curricula that align learning objectives with food security stakeholder needs. We hypothesize that the sense of personal responsibility to serve and empower food security network stakeholders will be a very important motivating factor for students to master the accompanying STEM learning objectives that have been integrated into the framework of the service-learning project.