The transdisciplinary field of agroecology provides a platform for experiential learning based on an expanded vision of research on sustainable farming and food systems and the application of results in creating effective learning landscapes for students. With increased recognition of limitations of fossil fuels, fresh water, and available farmland, educators are changing focus from strategies to reach maximum yields to those that feature resource use efficiency and resilience of production systems in a less benign climate. To help students deal with complexity and uncertainty and a wide range of biological and social dimensions of the food challenge, a whole-systems approach that involves life-cycle analysis and consideration of long-term impacts of systems is essential. Seven educational case studies in the Nordic Region and the U.S. Midwest demonstrate how educators can incorporate theory of the ecology of food systems with the action learning component needed to develop student potentials to create responsible change in society. New roles of agroecology instructors and students are described as they pursue a co-learning strategy to develop and apply technology to assure the productivity and security of future food systems ABSTRACT The transdisciplinary field of agroecology provides a platform for experiential learning based on an expanded vision of research on sustainable farming and food systems and the application of results in creating effective learning landscapes for students. With increased recognition of limitations of fossil fuels, fresh water, and available farmland, educators are changing focus from strategies to reach maximum yields to those that feature resource use efficiency and resilience of production systems in a less benign climate. To help students deal with complexity and uncertainty and a wide range of biological and social dimensions of the food challenge, a whole-systems approach that involves life-cycle analysis and consideration of long-term impacts of systems is essential. Seven educational case studies in the Nordic Region and the U.S. Midwest demonstrate how educators can incorporate theory of the ecology of food systems with the action learning component needed to develop student potentials to create responsible change in society. New roles of agroecology instructors and students are described as they pursue a co-learning strategy to develop and apply technology to assure the productivity and security of future food systems.

ForumA gronomy J our n al • Volume 10 0 , I s sue 3 • 2 0 0 8 ABSTRACT Research in agriculture has strongly focused on discipline-oriented, natural science-based approaches to increasing production with success measured by short-term, neoclassical economic evaluation. Th is strategy has contributed to impressive increases in food production over the last half century. Growing concerns include environmental impacts, changes in rural communities, and distribution of benefi ts of current agricultural systems. One major theme of this paper is a holistic, ecological, and transdisciplinary strategy for research in the agriculture and food sector, including attention to production and economics along with environmental and social factors. Agroecology provides an integrative alternative to the conventional division of research into specialized disciplines. Th e other primary theme is potential for a broader geographical approach to research, using the Nordic Region model as a case study for designing an educational platform to integrate research with teaching. We believe that students must develop a capacity to deal with future complexity and uncertainty, and thus be prepared to search out and answer diffi cult questions that have not yet been asked. In a university culture of curiosity and commitment, we need learning landscapes that prepare students to deal with change, embrace multiple dimensions of the food challenge, and establish participatory interactions with clients, communities, and organizations. In connecting scientists and consumers with the origins of their food and building awareness of the importance of the natural environment, we encourage wider support by society for research toward long-term sustainable agriculture and food supplies. We provide a working model of how to plan regional, transdisciplinary research to sustain agriculture and food systems.

ABSTRACT. Similar to research on social learning among adult participants in natural resources management, current research in the field of education claims that learning is situated in real-world practice, and occurs through recursive interactions between individual learners and their social and biophysical environment. In this article, we present an overview of the social and situated learning literatures from the fields of natural resources and education, and suggest ways in which educational programs for secondary and university students might be embedded in and contribute to efforts to enhance resilience of socialecological systems at the local scale. We also describe three initiatives in which learning is situated in adaptive co-management and civic ecology practices: a university graduate experiential learning course in Sweden, a pre-college environmental education program in the USA, and a university undergraduate service-learning class in the USA. Through integrating the social learning and adaptive management literature with the literature focusing on youth learning situated in authentic practice, we hope to: (1) suggest commonalities among systems views of learning and social-ecological systems perspectives on resilience, and (2) expand our thinking about educational practice from being a means to convey content matter to becoming a critical component of social-ecological systems and resilience.

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