ÜBER DIESE EPISODE
Most of the students in Professor Dennis McLaughlin’s course 1.74 Land, Water, Food, and Climate come to it with established opinions on some very controversial topics: whether GMOs are safe, whether climate change is real (and really human-induced), whether organic agriculture is preferable to conventional agriculture, and whether it’s better for land to be worked by individual farmers or by larger corporations. Dealing with topics like these in an introductory graduate-level class can be challenging. You have to train students to read the scientific literature so that they can evaluate the facts on both sides of an issue. But you also have to strike a balance between those concrete facts and the intangible social values that enter into debates on sensitive topics. In this episode, Professor McLaughlin describes his approach to those two challenges in teaching 1.74; he also explains how a diversity of backgrounds among the students in the class enriches class discussion, and he describes what he sees as the teacher’s role: to adjust and when necessary reframe the terms of discussion, while still allowing students the freedom to explore the ramifications of their ideas.
Uploaded 12-01-22
Relevant Resources:
MIT OpenCourseWare
https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=chalkradio&utm_term=s3e4
The OCW Educator Portal
https://ocw.mit.edu/educator?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=chalkradio&utm_term=s3e4
Share your teaching ideas and insights with Dennis McLaughlin
https://forms.gle/XBwUwqn35abSdjNs8
Professor McLaughlin’s course on OCW
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/civil-and-environmental-engineering/1-74-land-water-food-and-climate-fall-2020/? utm_source=youtube and utm_medium=shownotes and utm_campaign=chalkradio and utm_term=s3e4
Professor McLaughlin’s faculty page
https://cgcs.mit.edu/people/mclaughlin-dennis
Other environment courses on OCW
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/environment-courses/? utm_source=youtube and utm_medium=shownotes and utm_campaign=chalkradio and utm_term=s3e4
The MIT Climate Portal
https://climate.mit.edu
Connect with Curt Newton at LinkedIn or Twitter
https://www.linkedin.com/in/curt-newton-309266/
https://twitter.com/qwertnewto
Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions
https://www.sessions.blue
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Credits
Sarah Hansen, host and producer (https://twitter.com/learning_sarah)
Brett Paci, producer (https://twitter.com/Brett_Paci)
Dave Lishansky, producer (https://twitter.com/DaveResonates)
Script writing assistance by Nidhi Shastri
Show notes by Peter Chipman
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