Undergraduate Course: Planetary Health and Food Futures (VETS10025)
Course Outline
| School | Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies |
College | College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Planetary health has been defined as 'the health of human civilization and the state of the natural systems on which it depends'. This course will provide students with an introduction to the concepts and issues surrounding Planetary Health, and the related concept of One Health, what this means for current and future global agriculture, and the specific challenges this presents. This includes alternative approaches to providing the human population with healthy, sustainable diets, which we may think of as 'Food Futures'.
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| Course description |
- Introduction to concepts, models and approaches - transdisciplinary, interdependency and interconnectedness;
- Relationships between human diet and health and the natural and managed environments; natural resource management; ecosystem services for health and food production; sustainable intensification; indicators of wellbeing and resilience;
- Drivers of global environmental change and health impacts; future health; harnessing technology;
- Impacts of global environmental change on food security - resource supply and quality, production, nutrition, disease, biodiversity, resilience;
- An introduction to approaches for predicting future trends in food production; understanding of how to assess strengths and weaknesses of current approaches to predicting food futures;
- Analysis of possible food futures from modest adjustments to radical changes;
- Governance and policy challenges; sustainable development goals; case studies;
- Understanding wider implications of different food future scenarios including new food and feed sources;
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Describe the concepts of Planetary and One Health, their required approaches and relevance for global agriculture, their strengths and weaknesses and opportunities for improvement;
- Critically evaluate potential future contributions of alternative mechanisms (science, technology and policy) for addressing future challenges, particularly at the interface between ecosystem health, animal health and wellbeing, and human health and wellbeing;
- Evaluate examples of future scenarios for food production in terms of their strengths and weaknesses, and their implications for human and environmental health, from global to local scales;
- Analysis of complex and inter-disciplinary systems to consider the trade-off and synergies in outcomes.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | one-health,planetary health,food systems,dietary transitions,planetary boundaries |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Peter Alexander
Tel: (0131 6)50 9090
Email: Peter.Alexander@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr Gordon Littlejohn
Tel: (0131 6)51 7454
Email: Gordon.Littlejohn@ed.ac.uk |
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