Arava Institute for Environmental Studies

Fall 2024, 2025: Pollination and Food Security in a Changing World

This course is part of a collegiate level sustainability and cooperative peace building program that brings together Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, and international students. Students take classes covering diverse aspects of sustainability, including ecology and conservation, sociology, and geopolitics.

In the first half of this course, students learn to define and identify pollination as a process and the ways which food security can be measured, recognize the diversity of pollinators and their behaviors, and understand the relationships between pollinators and food security. During the second half, students break down the relationship between pollinators and food security to understand the factors which impact this relationship, such as climate and land use change, the exposure of pollinators to poor nutrition, pests, and agrochemicals, and ultimately how these understandings can be transformed into policy solutions.

University of Wisconsin – Madison

Fall 2018: Exploring Biology (Integsci 100)

This course was co-developed and co-instructed as part of the WISCIENCE Teaching Fellows program. The course had over 100 students that formed groups of 5-6 at tables, and each table had computers, classroom monitors, and white boards. This type of classroom is considered a SCALE-UP (Student Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies) space. The purpose being to facilitate student interaction with each other, hands on activities, and problem solving. It is a truly unique experience that helps facilitate student engagement, and ultimately outcomes.