Course Title NAVIGATING the SUSTAINABLE FOOD ENERGY WATER NEXUS IDS 6222

IDS 6222: Navigating the Sustainable Food, Energy, Water Nexus, Spring 2017, Patel College of Global Sustainability

Course Title NAVIGATING THE SUSTAINABLE FOOD ENERGY WATER NEXUS– IDS 6222 Session 001 (in class) and Session 201 (on line) Tuesdays 6:00-8:45 pm, Room CGS 140

Course Instructor Thomas Henry Culhane, 917-592-5922, [email protected] Office: CGS 253 Office Hours: Tuesdays 4:00-6:00 pm or by appointment

Course Description The sustainable Food Energy Water (FEW) nexus course helps students navigate the complexities of sustainability through systems thinking, field application and hands-on interaction, using case studies in food energy and water to create industrial ecology systems that close the loop from the solar energy that sustains food production through food waste to new food. The course uses Geographical Information Tools, Spatial Analysis, 3D Visualization and Augmented Reality enable the students to develop skill sets that can be used in untangling the overlapping and synergistic elements of the nexus by revealing their interactions in space and time.

Course Learning Outcomes After completing this course, the students should be able to: 1. Assess the state of the art regarding current understanding of how food, energy and water systems interact and be conversant in the history and conceptual limitations that have led to dysfunctional interventions in the past, creating “waste” and “pollution” and other negative externalities (normally an anathema in nature).

2. Comprehend the political economies of food, energy and water production and allocation and the legacy issues impeding holistic application of the principles of natural ecology and effective industrial ecology to the built environment.

3. Review infrastructure issues as organizations attempt to integrate the nexus holistically into the landscape to achieve desired synergies.

1 IDS 6222: Navigating the Sustainable Food, Energy, Water Nexus, Spring 2017, Patel College of Global Sustainability

4. Understand the key features of the technologies permitting systems integration between the food energy and water sectors that eliminate waste and pollution, with an ability to explain their advantages and disadvantages

Textbook and other reading material for the course McDonough, W., & Braungart, M. (2009). Cradle to cradle: Remaking the way we make things. London: Vintage.

Food, energy, and water : the chemistry connection edited by Satinder Ahuja. Amsterdam : Elsevier, [2015] Selected Readings

Mollison, Bill, Permacuture, A Designer’s Manual. Tagari 1988, selected readings

In addition to chapters from the textbook, a number of pertinent readings (public documents available online) will be assigned for each topic of the course and will be communicated to the students in advance via canvas. The readings include publications, magazine articles, and technical and business reports.

Communication The best way to communicate with the instructor is via email; his email address is listed on the first page of the syllabus.

Course Topics and Schedule (subject to change):

Date Topic Readings Week 1 Module 1: Textbook Cradle to Cradle: Chapter 1, A Question of Design Applying the tragedy of the Chapter 2: Why Being Less Bad is No Good. Jan. 10 commons to the strange synergies between food, FAO: The Water-Energy-Food Nexus: A new approach in energy and water, support of food security and sustainable agriculture understanding the wastes http://www.fao.org/3/a-bl496e.pdf that are created, and applying systems thinking to Mohtar, R.H., and Daher, B. 2012. “Water, Energy, and Food: avoid the tragedy in the first The Ultimate Nexus’. Encyclopaedia of Agricultural, Food, and place. Biological Engineering, Second Edition.

Week 2 Module 2: Cradle to Cradle Chapter 3 “Eco-Effectiveness”,

How applying the nexus Chapter 4: Waste = Food Jan. 17 makes the our Ecological Chapter 5: Respect Diversity Footprint work within the boundaries of only one earth.

Week 3 Module 3: Cradle to Cradle Chapter 6: Putting Eco-Effectiveness into How to apply Systems Practice” Jan. 24 thinking and systems integration to Nexus Bazilian, M., Rogner, H., Howells, M., Hermann, S., Arent, D., Analysis - how to see the Gielen, D., Steduto, P., Mueller, A., Komor, P., and Tol, R. S. J. synergies Considering the energy, water and food nexus: Towards an integrated modelling approach. Energy Policy, 39(12), 7896- 7906. Hussey, K., and Pittock, J. (2012), The Energy–Water Nexus: Managing the Links between Energy and Water for a Sustainable Future, Ecology and Society, 17(1), 31. Week 4 Module 4: Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual, by Mollison The promise of Chapters 1, 2, 3 (Introduction, Concepts and Themes in Jan. 31 permaculture as a global Design, Methods of Design). experimental movement in FEW synthesis

Week 5 Module 5: Food, energy, and water : the chemistry connection Chapter Progress in food production: 16, “Water Scarcity, Global Challenges for Agriculture”. Feb. 7 a new wave of ancient practices and post-modern technologies that use less water and less energy, produce less waste and can even produce more energy.

Week 6 Module 6: Food, energy, and water : the chemistry connection Food security: what's Chapter 1 Nexus of Food Energy and Water and Feb. 14 needed and why does it Chapter 15 “Beyond the Brink” demand the nexus?

Asian Development Bank. 2013. Thinking about water differently: Managing the water–food–energy nexus. Mandaluyong City, Philippines: Asian Development Bank (ADB). IISD Report (2013), The Water–Energy–Food Security Nexus: Towards a practical planning and decision-support framework for landscape investment and risk management

Water, energy, and food Security, Resource Platform: http://www.water-energy- food.org/en/whats_the_nexus.html Week 7 Module 7: Pathways to a zero-carbon economy Where has all the power Learning from large scale de-carbonisation strategies Feb. 21 gone? Producing and John Wiseman preparing food in a world without fossil fuels

Week 8 Module 8: Food, energy, and water : the chemistry connection E = mc2, so what's the Chapter 11 Biodiesel from Plant Oils Feb. 28 matter? : Harnessing the Chapter 12 Introduction to Solar Photovoltaic Technology energy embedded in food, food waste and organic “Concentrating Solar Power: Best Practices Handbook for residuals the Collection and Use of Solar Resource Data”, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (2010) http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/47465.pdf

David William House: “The Biogas Handbook: Being a Compendium of the Art & Science of Using Anything Once Alive to Produce a Burnable Gas for Powering Light, Automobiles, Ovens, Tractors, Water Heaters, Furnaces & Various Contraptions Paperback – Student Calendar, 1978

Week 9 Midterm Presentations Lectures 1-6 Each group presents its progress Mar. 7 Week 10 SPRING BREAK NO CLASS

Mar. 14 Week 11 Module 9: Food, energy, and water : the chemistry connection Water, Water Everywhere, Chapter 17: The Need for Water Reuse Mar. 21 but do we have to use so much? And why aren't we simply recycling it?

Week 12 Module 10: Food, energy, and water : the chemistry connection Where there's water, there's Chapter 10: Coal Use as a Cause of Water Quality Impairment Mar. 28 life, so where's the water?: Chapter 13: An exploration of non- “Contaminated Irrigation Water and the Associated Health revenue water, embedded Risks” and Chapter water and the virtual water project

Week 13 Module 11: “Sustainable development and the water–energy–food Going down the drain with nexus: A perspective on livelihoods” in Environmental Science Apr. 4 Sanitation: Flushing and & Policy Volume 54, December 2015, Pages 389–397 draining and dumping and the metabolic rift Marx's Theory of Metabolic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology John Bellamy Foster American Journal of SociologyVol. 105, No. 2 (September 1999), pp. 366-405

Week 14 Module 12: Food, energy, and water : the chemistry connection Getting into Hot Water: How Chapter 6 “Water-Energy-Food: Our Existence will Require Apr. 11 heating water for cooking, Natural Gas” cleaning, bathing, creating power and processing causes “Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change major problems and sits at Mitigation”, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the heart of the nexus (2012) http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/IPCC_SRREN_Full_Report.pdf

“Renewable Electricity Futures Study”, NREL (2012) http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/52409-1.pdf

Week 15 Module 13: Case Study: Case studies: “A Systems Approach to Integrated Resource and Waste Apr. 18  USF: Exploring Management: Water, Energy and Food Systems at the water, energy, and University of South Florida” by Cassouto, Cureton et. al. (Final food subsystems and project for professor Seneshaw Tsegaye 2015 how these components form a nexus used at the University of South Florida Tampa campus for existing resource and waste management strategies to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets.  Fleet Farming: Replacing lawns with food gardens in Orlando. How would it work in Tampa?  Food-waste-to-fuel- and-fertilizer: The

Solar CITIES Home and Community Biogas Experience  Vertical Aeroponics and the Amish: How a 19th century culture is leading in the 21st century and using a fraction of the water to grow 7 to 10 times more food.

Week 16 Module 14: “A Methodology to Assess the Water Energy Food How to Visualize the Nexus: Ecosystems Nexus in Transboundary River Basins “ Apr. 25 Using GIS and Data De Strasser, L., Lipponen, A., Howells, M., Stec, S., Bréthaut, Visualization to make the C. Water, vol 8, no 2, pp 59, Multidisciplinary Digital linkages easier to to Publishing Institute manage. Student design Charrette: Using team work and visualization tools to solve a problem Week 17 Final Exam: Student Comprehensive (all lectures) presentations on Systems Students should be dressed in business attire May 2 Integration: Putting it all together for the public.

Research Project The research project is what the student teams use to do their final presentation, which serves as their final exam. The project is intended to foster critical, creative, and practical thinking and to develop effective interpersonal and communication skills. Students will select a topic among those discussed in class (listed in the “Course Topics and Schedule” table above) and will perform a literature search to identify, analyze, and discuss key issues. The goal is to give students the opportunity to gain insight into a specific topic that is of particular interest to them among the real-world themes studied in this course. The research performed and its dissemination will not only enrich the students’ knowledge, but will also sharpen their critical thinking as they become more familiar with the diverse aspects of the food, water, energy nexus as a pillar of a sustainable, thriving industrial ecology based -economy that operates on the ecological principle that “nature knows no wastes” and the “pollution is simply the right thing in the wrong place and the wrong concentration at the wrong time”(Culhane, in press).

The challenge student teams will embrace in the design charrette is figuring out how to create a nexus that is truly “ZERO WASTE”, eliminating negative externalities, fostering positive externalities and embracing the UN Sustainable Development Goals including social and environmental justice as

6 IDS 6222: Navigating the Sustainable Food, Energy, Water Nexus, Spring 2017, Patel College of Global Sustainability outcomes. Students will share their findings with their classmates during a professional presentation and will produce a written report. Detailed instructions will be provided through Canvas.

Grading Policy The project is graded throughout the course using a “gamified” point system with points assigned via a clear RUBRIC that is made available at the beginning of the course and is updated throughout using a “leaderboard system”. Students accumulate points as they go, striving to earn sufficient points to “purchase” their desired grade at the end. In order for points to qualify for grade purchase, students must engage in 2 presentations. There will be 2 opportunities to present in the course. The first is at the middle of the term when they try out to integrate their individual research and work for the first time for public comment and instructor evaluation. The second qualifying opportunity is at the end of the course when they take the results of their group design charrette and present formally to an audience made up of their peers and faculty and outside observers. The rubric explains the point values and percentages and alternatives for students who would like to engage in other activities for extra credit. Class participation with regard to class (or online) discussions and attendance is expected.. The breakdown of the overall grade is as follows:  Qualifying Midterm Presentation: 30%  Qualifying Final Presentation: 30%  Research Project: 30% (15% participation in Design Charette and 15% for individualized contribution report)  Class Participation: 10%

The basis for grading is: A (excellent) 90-100 B (very good) 80-89 C (fair) 70-79 D (marginal) 60-69 F (fail) < 60

The instructors reserve the right to assign grades of +/– and to apply a curve (at their discretion per USF policies).

Late Work and Make-up Examinations: Automatic make-up examinations will be given ONLY for students involved in official University of South Florida activities (i.e. athletics, conferences, field trips, etc.). Students away on official USF business during scheduled exams must present a valid excuse on official University of South Florida stationary signed by the appropriate college personnel. No assigned work will be handed in after the last day of the grading period unless otherwise specified. Students missing presentations due to illness must verify their health problems with signed documentation from two acceptable corroborative sources (i.e. your 7 IDS 6222: Navigating the Sustainable Food, Energy, Water Nexus, Spring 2017, Patel College of Global Sustainability doctor and your parents). Students needing to miss examinations due to chronic health conditions or to deaths in the family should consult with the instructor. Late assignments will be assessed a penalty of 10% off the grade per day.

Academic Misconduct: The University of South Florida policies apply to all aspects of this course. There is zero tolerance for cheating, plagiarism, and other forms of academic dishonesty. The application project paper MUST include proper citation of sources, failure to do so will result in a grade of F. Any infringement will result in the maximum prosecution of the offender by the University of South Florida and may result in various consequences ranging from a course grade of zero to academic suspension.

Student Disability Services: Students in need of academic accommodations for a disability may consult with the office of Services for Students with Disabilities to arrange appropriate accommodations. Students are required to give reasonable notice (typically 5 working days) prior to requesting an accommodation.

Instructor Profile: Thomas Henry Culhane, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor, Environmental Sustainability and Justice, Organic Waste Management and Food Waste to Fuel and Fertilizer Specialist

Dr. Culhane is a recognized leader in environmental sustainability and justice with over 25 years involvement in environmental education, working in poverty stricken areas around the globe. He started his environmental technology research in villages in the primary rainforests of Borneo for a year and in war-torn Iraq for six months on a Harvard Rockefeller fellowship before moving to Los Angeles to apply his insights as an inner city science education reformer. He attended UCLA for his Master’s and Ph.D. in Urban Planning (Regional and International Development and Environmental Analysis and Policy), doing “praxis” by turning theory into practice in a hands on way living at the L.A. Urban Ecovillage experiment during the school year and spending holidays and summer’s supervising agroforestry and sustainable development projects in a rainforest village in Guatemala and in the urban slums of Cairo, Egypt . At the Patel College of Global Sustainability Dr. Culhane, who is the co-founding director of the NGO Solar CITIES, a member of the Clinton Global Initiative and United Religions Initiative, leads the research, development, training and “scale-out” of the “food-waste-to-fuel-and-fertilizer” initiative. As a “National Geographic Emerging Explorer” since 2009, Culhane has been working with Nat Geo, the US State Department, US AID and other organizations creating and conducting trainings, lectures, multi-

8 IDS 6222: Navigating the Sustainable Food, Energy, Water Nexus, Spring 2017, Patel College of Global Sustainability media presentations and other open source educational material in over a dozen countries to bring the possibility of closing the resource loop and integrating the food/energy/water nexus in community empowering ways to enable students stakeholders in troubled areas of the world eliminate wastes and the problems they create. With over ten years experience training communities in Israel, Palestine, Iraq and several African countries, Culhane will now be applying the research he is doing in applying the FEW Nexus to solve problems in the Zataari Refugee camp, the largest refugee camp in Jordan.