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Students in Food, Farming and Social Change learn as much through doing as they do in discussion or reading. We cook, visit, hike, create, eat, and serve, finding ways to apply our readings and discussions in practice. 

 The class uses the island as a classroom, visiting the Waimea Midweek Farmers’ Market to interview vendors and customers,  and touring the ancient Hawaiian dryland agricultural system being studied at Ulu Mau Puanui. Optional  trips take FFSC students into Waipio Valley to help a nonprofit organization care for an 800-year-old taro patch, and to a small farm outside Hawi to help maintain a healing garden for people in recovery.

The seminar also includes 

experiments in living that the class takes on together. in a reflection on waste and consumption,the class spends one week collecting, photographing, or cataloguing everything item we throw "away."

in another exercise, everyone in the class  takes  a 12-to-24 -hour break from phone, computer, and television screens, keeping a journal to record the experience.

"The only
 
source of
knowledge is 
experience
 
everything else
is just
 
information"
-Albert Einstien

FIELD WORK AND EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

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