CLASSES

The FEED Collaborative offers a number of integrated courses that allow students to work collaboratively with industry thought leaders to create innovative solutions to the most pressing and important issues in our food system. Through hands-on real-world projects, workshops, field-immersion, lectures, storytelling, and improvisational theatre techniques, students develop confidence in their creative problem solving ability by learning, applying and through reflection assessing the value of design thinking.  Students also learn how to evaluate their personal working styles in order to facilitate empathic relationships with their teammates, our community partners, and those for whom we're designing solutions.  Following are the current courses sponsored by the FEED Collaborative:

WINTER 2016

EARTHSYS 289(a): FEED LAB - Food System Design & Innovation

FEED Lab is a 3-4 unit introductory course in design thinking and food system innovation offered through the FEED Collaborative. Targeted at graduate students interested in food and the food system, this course provides a series of diverse, primarily hands-on experiences (design projects with industry-leading thinkers, field work, and collaborative leadership development) in which students both learn and apply the process of human-centered design to projects of real consequence in the food system. The intent of this course is to develop students' creative confidence, collaborative leadership ability, and skills in systems thinking to prepare them to be more effective as innovators and leaders in the food system. This course is mandatory for any student wishing to qualify for the FEED Collaborative's summer Leadership and Innovation Program, in which select students participate in full-time, paid, externship roles with collaborating thought-leaders in the industry. Alternatively, it would qualify student(s) for a project incubation opportunity whereby FEED provides physical space, professional mentoring & advising and/or financial support to help incubate a student lead and design project of an entrepreneurial nature .

This class is project-based, and we work with a real-world organization to sponsor a meaningful problem towards which we can apply student thought and build experience for participating students. We are in the process of confirming the project sponsor for this class, and will update the website as soon as we have confirmation. The project will focus on food behaviors of consumers and clients - involving humans at their core - and how transparency in the supply chain can be communicated to add value to the end user. 

Admission is by a short & sweet application. Preference for graduate & professional school students, we will consider other students on a case-by-case basis, feel free to reach out with questions. Apply by Wednesday at 11:59pm on December 9, 2015. 

Wednesdays & Fridays from 1:30 - 3:20 pm   ||   Units: 3-4   ||   B04 Mitchell Science Building

Instructors: Dunn, D. (PI) ; Rothe, M. (PI) ; Mensing, H.  ||  E-mail Hannah with questions, hmensing@stanford.edu.

CURRENT CLASS APPLICATIONS

All courses offered by the FEED Collaborative are application-based in order to ensure radical team diversity and collaboration.  Please fill out the designated form for any course in which you wish to enroll. 

Applications take 5 minutes!  EARTHSYS 289(a) - FEED LAB: Food System Design & Innovation available HERE. Apply by Wednesday at 11:59pm on December 9, 2015.

A description of all Winter Quarter d.School classes, including ours, can be found HERE. 

PAST CLASSES

WINTER 2015: EARTHSYS 289A - FEED Lab: Innovating in the Local Food System. 

SPRING 2015: EARTHSYS 289B -  FEED Lab: Innovating in the Local Food System.  The class was project based, with coaching from the teaching team, with the intention to support teams of students working on specific projects in a work-studio format. Primarily a follow-on course to EARTHSYS 289A, was an experiential education platform that enables students already experienced in design thinking to collaborate with faculty and industry thought-leaders on projects of real consequence in the local food system Students will deepen their skills in design thinking and social entrepreneurship by working on projects sponsored by leading innovators in the FEED Collaborative's network. Some projects may turn into summer internships or research projects for students interested in continuing their work. 

SPRING 2015: EARTHSYS 119/219 - Will Work For Food: This was a speaker series class featuring highly successful innovators in the food system. Featured speakers talked in an intimate, conversational manner about their current work, as well as about their successes, failures, and learnings along the way. See the speaker series page for podcasts of the talks. 

EARTHSYS 289(A): FEED Lab: Innovating in the Local Food System. Offered through the FEED Collaborative, this graduate-level course combines experiential learning in human-centered design, systems thinking and social entrepreneurship. Students will learn and apply these skills to projects that may include: sustainable food and farming technology, disruptive models of production and distribution, food justice, and/or the behavioral economics of eating. Students will benefit from close interaction with the teaching team, working on a multidisciplinary team of their peers, support from industry-leading project sponsors, and the varied perspectives of guest speakers. The goal of this course is to develop the creative confidence of students and, in turn, to work collaboratively with thought leaders in the local food system to design innovative solutions to the challenges they face. 

MS&E 187 | EARTHSYS 187 FEED the Change (Fall Quarter 2013): an introductory course to design and systems thinking targeted at upperclass undergraduates.  Students will learn and apply design thinking to food-related design projects on the Stanford campus. Application deadline: Wednesday September 18th. For more information, please see the course syllabus.

MS&E 289 Designing for Sustainable Abundance (Winter Quarter 2014): a graduate-level course focused on the intersection of design thinking and the existential questions facing our food system.  Students will learn and apply design thinking to food-related design projects in our regional food shed.

MS&E 408 FEED Labs: Food System Innovation (Spring Quarter 2014): FEED Labs is an experiential education platform that enables students, faculty, and industry thought leaders to collaborate on projects of real consequence in the local food system. A select cohort of students will work in small, diverse teams and will interact closely with the teaching team in an intentionally creative and informal classroom setting. Students will learn and apply skills in design thinking and social entrepreneurship to projects sponsored by leading innovators in the FEED Collaborative’s network. For more information, please see the course syllabus. 

GSBGEN 337: Business Collaboration to Promote a Sustainable Food System (Spring Quarter 2014):
COLLABORATE, INNOVATE, ACCELERATE: SCALING OUR LOCAL FOOD ECONOMY
This class is taught in collaboration with Sarah Soule, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford. Through project based experiential education focused on food justice, sustainable food and farming technology and disruptive models of production and distribution, students, faculty and community partners collaborate to to redesign our food system. "Needs Ladder" clip is from a class lecture video by Matt Rothe.