AN INTEGRATED FRAMEWORK FOR FOOD-ENERGY-WATER-NEXUS EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

The Food-Energy-Water (FEW)-Nexus is a powerful topic for teaching and learning that supports socio-ecological systems thinking and decision making about natural resources. The National Collaborative for Research on Food, Energy, and Water Education (NC-FEW) is a community that brings together educators and education researchers engaged in FEW-Nexus-based educational programming and research in a wide array of contexts, including K-12 and postsecondary classrooms, and non-formal learning environments. Aims of NC-FEW are to understand educational practices related to the FEW-Nexus and instructional challenges when teaching FEW-related topics, with the goal to use educational research to address these challenges. NC-FEW members conducted a series of workshops targeting different scientific and educational disciplines including Earth science, geography, agriculture, and K12 science. In these workshops, we promoted participants to consider their role in educational research in addressing FEW sustainability and security by considering how the FEW-Nexus relates to their specific contexts, the challenges to teaching and learning about the FEW-Nexus in their domains and situations, and their suggestions for addressing these challenges.

Initial analyses revealed that participants’ responses fell along ontological and epistemological dimensions. Along with other recent work from NC-FEW and the existing literature, we developed a framework for FEW-Nexus education and educational research, structured around these dimensions. The ontological dimension focused on participants' thoughts about the socio-ecological systems aspects of the nexus, which we categorized as (a) Social Dimensions of the FEW- Nexus and (b) Ecological Contexts within the FEW-Nexus. The epistemological dimension focused on participants' thoughts about educational aspects of the FEW-Nexus, which we categorized as (c) Social Contexts of Formal and Informal Education Communities and (d) Collective Beliefs about Education and Education Research. The framework will next be used to conduct a thematic content analysis of participants’ responses, leading to a deeper understanding of the potential of the FEW-Nexus in advancing education that contributes to change and disruption, moving local, regional, and global socio-ecological systems toward sustainability and security.