Sustainable Diets - A submodule in the SustainComp Curriculum

The SustainComp project was initiated in response to the pressing challenges faced by the EU in terms of health, environment, and climate change. With a focus on cross-border collaboration, the project aimed to develop a future-oriented curriculum on sustainable development for Higher Education Institutions. One of the submodules, Sustainable Diets, focuses on diets with low environmental impacts which also promote food security and adequate nutrition, leading to healthy lives for current and future generations. Promoting these diets are essential for achieving the UNs sustainable development goals. This paper describes the development of this submodule and the assessment of the full-scale pilot carried out in October 2023 with teacher education students in Denmark. The research question is: How did students perceive the content, the competence acquired, and delivery of the submodule Sustainable Diets? The data was collected from a student survey conducted immediately after the end of the submodule. The results showed that the student’s pre-competences in this topic varied. After the full-scale pilot most students expressed that their competencies in the topic sustainable diets increased to some or to a large degree (60 % to 84 %). Even though most of the students expressed benefits with online teaching, some preferred the teachers to be physically present. The findings also emphasized that short teaching videos and instruction videos for the student-active activities, were valued by the students.