ENHANCING TEACHING AND LEARNING ABOUT THE FOOD-ENERGY-WATER-NEXUS: WHO ARE POSTSECONDARY REFORMERS IN NC-FEW?

Food, energy and water (FEW) are critical systems for humanity and subject to rapidly growing global demand compounded by climate change. The inter-dependency among these resources is multidimensional, requiring an effective and coordinated Nexus approach. These challenges provide a rationale for sustained, systemic, and interdisciplinary educational efforts focused on food, energy and water systems in a wide array of educational contexts. The National Collaborative for Research on Food, Energy, and Water Education (NC-FEW) is an NSF-funded, emergent, transdisciplinary community of postsecondary educators and education researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds engaged in sustained network- and capacity-building. Here, we present preliminary findings from an onboarding survey of 143 members of the NC-FEW community working in different educational contexts to better understand the depth of their FEW-Nexus knowledge base, confidence with FEW-Nexus teaching and education research, and sense of community affiliation. Results show that NC-FEW members are able to characterize FEW-Nexus concepts with approximately 80% accuracy. Participants were more confident about general teaching & research abilities (Mean=3.8) than with FEW-Nexus teaching & research proficiency (Mean=3.3). A paired t-test validated the statistical significance of this observed difference. Also, results demonstrate that participants feel connected to the community of FEW-Nexus educators only to some extent. These findings indicate the presence of ambiguity in the perception of the FEW-Nexus concept among NC-FEW community members, which calls for further clarity and development. Additionally, the importance of organizing FEW-Nexus education training and workshops to boost members’ confidence and strengthening the sense of community affiliation was highlighted by this study, therefore having important implications for ongoing NC-FEW community activities and broader postsecondary reform efforts.