Teaching
Courses Taught by Dr. Jeri Barak
PP 375, Food Security Deep Dive, is the anchor course for the Global Food Security First-Year Interest Group and meets with PP 311. This learning community has a history of being dynamic and each year, a close knit group that often develops that lasts throughout their time at UW-Madison.
GFS FIG students bring their passion for food security in a myriad of ways, even after their first semester at UW-Madison. In 2013, GFS FIG students brought the documentary, Give a Damn? to UW-Madison. A feature length documentary about three friends, two idealistic activists and one skeptic, attempting to live in poverty, on $1.25 a day, across 3 continents. The adventure takes a devastating turn when two of them survive a deadly plane crash in Africa, and all three must fight to finish what they started.
Food insecurity is a local issue too, including UW-Madison. Food assistance is available in several forms on campus: Food Recovery Network, Slow Food UW featuring 2014 GFS FIG student volunteer, Harvest Handouts, and The Open Seat.
In 2019, the Student Organic Farm UW Organic Collaborative was born, thanks to the hard work of GFS FIG student, Sofia Weinstein, the word is spreading. 2021-2022 Sofia took charge of the collaborative’s media presence and merged her skills developed as a double major, Plant Pathology and Agriculture & Applied Economics, to demonstrate the feasibility of a food truck as a buyer for the Student Organic Farm which will contribute to UW-Madison’s sustainability and local food system. Thus, the UW Electric Food Truck will launch April, 2022.
A GFS FIG student (2016) was motivated to secure a Wisconsin Idea Fellowship from UW–Madison’s Morgridge Center for Public Service to fund her Patio Tomato Project with the objective to bring container gardening to food insecure folks in Madison, focusing on kids.
