Time For Class

After studying for a few minutes in the Ettinger Lounge and making sure that Callan was not going to have an allergic reaction to the sting, Lauren and I headed off to a class taught by Dr. Cheryl Swift and Dr. Becky Overmeyer-Velasquez. We viewed a YouTube video of the impact of the changing diet in Japan (e.g., unhealthy weight gain, more imports of food from far away, less food production in Japan), which summarized some of the themes that the class had been exploring. Then students presented information on the projects that they will be doing over the next couple of weeks. Some members of the class will travel to Costa Rica with the professors for the next 10 days and will have a chance to tour coffee and banana farms and learn first-hand about production methods; other students will remain in the States and concentrate on library research of the topics. When the class returns, we will hear about Costa Rican efforts to grow products that are more environmentally friendly, with less deforestation and lower pesticide use, and also the challenges of meeting global demand.