2018 ASHS Annual Conference

HORT 795 Urban Agriculture Study Tour is a one-credit course that was added to our Horticulture Masters of Science specialization in Urban Food Systems (UFS) in 2015. Through this course students experience the breadth of urban food systems found in large urban settings. Thus far we have led three study tours to Chicago (2015), Seattle (2016) and Honolulu (2017). During pre-tour class sessions, students are assigned sites that they will serve as the discussion leader for, research the sites and present what they have learned in class prior to the tour. During the week-long study tour students and faculty visit up to 15 sites representing as many aspects of an urban food system as possible, such as urban farms and local food-related businesses, community development and social service groups, and not-for-profit organizations. They have the opportunity to learn from farmers, processors, distributers, planners, community activists, and retailers; and subsequently gain awareness of the complexity of issues surrounding urban agriculture and food systems. Students work on a food security project during the tour, assessing each site to its role in contributing to food security in urban areas and then post-tour present their findings in class. Pre- and post-tour surveys are conducted to assess the value addition of home country study tours regarding student-learning outcomes. Students enrolled in HORT 791 Urban Agriculture were used as a comparison group. Additionally, the graduate students that help organize the trip are interviewed, and written feedback is gathered from all the students and faculty that participate. Our data support the educational value of study tours. Students that participated in the tours demonstrated greater positive changes in confidence to perform UFS skills than students in a traditional classroom setting. The study tour experience fostered development of students’ capacity to collaborate and share knowledge. Students developed their UFS knowledge and professional skills (soft skills) through guided experiences at the tour sites. Our data supports the value of experiential learning through experiencing the actual context of UFSs.