Originally presented 8 Dec 2012
NOTE; THE TROPAG PROGRAM IS NOW THE AGRICULTURE AND FOOD C=SECURITY CENTER.
Tropical Agricultural Program, Columbia Earth Institute
The double burden of undernutrition and overnutrition affects more than two billion people around the globe. At one extreme, 3.5 million child deaths per year are related to undernutrition. At the other extreme, increasing rates of obesity in both the developed and developing world require an urgent response. Both dimensions of malnutrition place particular demands on food, public health and agro-ecological systems and require changes in strategy from farmers, health workers, and the global food industry.
The importance of agriculture for nutrition and health in terms of both benefits and risks is recognized now as never before. Yet links between the agriculture, nutrition, and health communities are weak, with serious implications for the effectiveness of overall efforts to improve nutrition outcomes.
The Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program, located on the Lamont Campus and part of the Columbia Earth Institute, works closely with site teams in ten sub-Saharan African countries, and with other teams globally to strengthen synergies between agriculture, nutrition and human health.
In this talk, we will discuss a couple of our research and implementation projects and hope to trigger thinking about how agriculture and food systems can better contribute to improving nutrition and human health.
Representing the TropAg program is Roseline Remans, a bio-engineer and associate research scientist at the TropAg Program and at the Center for Global Health and Economic Development at Columbia University. Her research focuses on how changes in agro-ecological systems are related to and can influence human nutrition. She aims to develop, test, and validate methodologies that facilitate bridging the agriculture, environment, and health sectors toward improved nutrition. Roseline has working experience in Latin America, East and West Africa, the US, and Europe.
Introduction to this Workshop
Today’s E2C Workshop marks the beginning of a new partnership with a component of the Columbia Earth Institute, the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program. Dr. Roseline Remans will provide information about this program, in which she currently serves as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
CIESIN (Center for International Earth Science Information Network) is another component of the Columbia Earth Institute. Mark Becker and other CIESIN scientists have presented at previous E2C Workshops.
Mark, Michael Passow, and others have worked over the past few years on a project that has some relevance to today’s theme. Climate Change Human Health has created sets of activities for high school students to explore impacts on human populations of the changing climate.
So as an introduction to day’s “Cutting-Edge Research” presentation, please go to the “Classroom Resources” section of these web pages and explore the “Food Security” activities.
Cutting-Edge Research
The Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Project (TropAg) is one component of the Columbia Earth Institute.
Together with our partners, TropAg helps accelerate progress toward food security in Africa while also improving rural livelihoods, human nutrition, and environmental sustainability.
We are developing a scientific evidence base, which translates into tools, guidelines, and methodologies that are tested through implementation and shared through education, outreach, and advocacy.
We see major progress toward eliminating hunger in Africa and other parts of the tropics in the next two to three decades, as well as a much better public understanding of science-based agriculture and the global food system in urban centers of developed countries in the next five years.
Roseline Remans is a bio-engineer and associate research scientist at the TropAg Program and at the Center for Global Health and Economic Development (CGHED), also at Columbia University. Her research focuses on how changes in agro-ecological systems are related to and can influence human nutrition. She aims to develop, test, and validate methodologies that facilitate bridging the agriculture, environment, and health sectors toward improved nutrition. Roseline has working experience in Latin America, East and West Africa, the US, and Europe.
Classroom Resources
The Climate Change and Human Health project is designed to provide educators with the resources to engage high school students in critical thinking about climate change and the potential impact on human health across the planet. Activities developed for this project all use an interactive geospatial globe called CHANGE Viewer, to view and access climate and human related datasets.
The Climate and Health ANalysis for Global Education Viewer (CHANGE Viewer) was built using NASA World Wind, an open source, 3-D geo-visualization tool. CHANGE Viewer allows the exploration of climate science, human and socio-economic datasets made available through the Data Library.
One set of activities pertinent to today’s E2C them is about Food Security. Examine these in light of the ideas presented in this E2C Workshop for Teachers.
Other Resources for This Topic
Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Project
“Nutrition and Well Being“
Millenium Villages
“How Do You End Extreme Poverty?“
Vital Signs
“An Integrated Monitoring System for Environmental Services in Agricultural Landscapes“
The TropAg program contributed to the current special exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History about
“Our Global Kitchen: Food, Nature, Culture“
Integrating Educational Technologies
General suggestions: Integrating Educational Technologies into Your Classrooms
This month’s E2C “Classroom resources” features the “ClimateChangeHumanHealth” Program’s ‘Food Security’ activities. These combine a special visualization tool–the “Change Viewer”–with databases created by CIESIN and classroom activities.
Your assignment:
1) What characteristics make Visualization Tools-Database-Curriculum Activities effective as a classroom teaching tool?
2) When should Visualization Tools-Database-Curriculum Activities be used for full-class instruction, and when should they be used for small groups or individual projects?
3) Describe strategies to locate suitable Visualization Tools-Database-Curriculum Activities for your classes.
and
4) Design a lesson plan that incorporates at least one Visualization Tools-Database-Curriculum Activities .
E2C Follow-up:
You may send your model lesson and other responses to this “assignment” to michael@earth2class.org. If suitable, we will post your work in the E2C lesson plans and/or add them to this section of the Workshop website.
Multimedia
The TropAg Program and Global Citizen present this video about “A Promising Study on Nutrition“