Throughout this quarter we dealt with a ride range of topics, from palm oil, to food accessibility, to the American diet. Throughout all these different topics, the theme of systems and coordination persevered. Never did we learn about a topic that stood alone, instead, each topic flowed into one another and we uncovered the interconnectedness of even the smallest things. In addition to the systematic nature of each topic we discussed, we also learned how all ideas and thoughts are deeply intersectional. Each system has political, social, environmental and more intersections and affects. My biggest take away from my group project was also what I thought related it most to this class, and it was discovery how intersectional the issue of food accessibility is.
My group project centered on the idea of both global and local food accessibility, and the different view-points of different professors, both experts in their respective fields, on how their specific studies relates to food accessibility. For the project, we interviewed a professor in the school of the environment and a professor who was an expert on transportation studies. It was amazing to me the range in answers these professors gave to the same exact questions on the same exact topic. While Professor Wheat from the school of the environment talked to us about the political implications of farming as well as the environmental benefits of an urban farm, while Professor Goodchild talked about food delivery systems and how implemented correctly they could help access to food. It was mind blowing to me how two answers that were so different could be plausible solutions to the same problem. However, I feel like this was the point of this entire class. There was no easy or right way to solve the issues we discussed given. This lead to at times a feeling of hopelessness, because the problems we learned about seem so dire. However, after talking with such great minds about these issues, and seeing the problems and their intersections from such different angels, I realized something. These issues, such as climate change, food accessibility, and deforestation, are not going to be solved from one solution. They are going to be solved by 10 solutions coming at it from ten different angels, because these problems intersect into 10 different fields. While this seems overwhelming as well, it gave me a lot more hope that solutions are coming, and that I could be a part of it.