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Fall 2010
Journalism 98/198
2 Unit(s)

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About the Course:

Food is one of the most sensitive topics around - something that everyone has an opinion on. Marketers spend tens of billions of dollars to convince us to consume their food and drink.  Then weight loss companies spend billions of dollars to convince us their products will make people “healthier.”  But what does “healthy” even mean?  Government is in the middle of everything, but are they really serving the citizen’s best interest?  What about the environmental and social externalities resulting from an industrialized food system?  

 
Food Sustainability and Health in Social Media seeks to shed light on these topics and more.  Social media has allowed contemporary ideas to flourish like never before over the past few years and will serve as the primary medium between students and the outside world.  The course will focus around three issues related to sustainability: environment, public policy and health.  Each issue will be championed by one of our facilitators.  Michael Pollan (author of Omnivore’s Dilemma, Food Rules, In Defense of Food) is the course advisor.
 
This course will meet once a week for two hours and will consist of lecture, media and discussion.  Course material will consist of blog readings, book excerpts and films. Students are expected to bring their pre-existing views, yet approach the material with an open mind and critical eye. Assignments are meant to immerse students in social media and thus consist of a blog post and blog comments and the option to publish in Naked Bear Magazine.

Facilitators
Jenna Kingkade [policy] a Junior, is the course founder and facilitated last semester.  She is also the editor of Naked Bear Magazine and previously works as a sustainability intern for Cal Dining.

Nicholas Duffy [environment] is a 2nd year undergraduate planning on majoring in Conservation and Resource Studies. He participated in the Naked Bear Magazine and the Food Sustainability Journalism decal last semester.

Scott Shapiro [health] is a 2nd year MBA student at Haas.  This past summer he interned at Facebook in product marketing.  His passion for all things food, nutrition and fitness haven taken center stage after he turned his health around when he quit his consulting job four years ago.

How to Enroll:

UPDATE: all interested students must fill out a short application by August 27th at 11:59pm: http://bit.ly/95sMwL . You will be notified by August 30th at 5pm if you are admitted into the class.

We will distribute CCNs CECs on the first day of class and give priority to students who contacted us in advance. We also aim to have a good representation of students from all class-levels. Graduate students are welcome.

The first class on August 31st is mandatory. We will remove students who do not show up from our list to make room for other students.