ACTIVE AND COLLABORATIVE METHODOLOGIES TO DEVELOP “SUSTAINABILITY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY” AS A CROSS CURRICULAR SKILL IN THE DEGREE OF HUMAN NUTRITION AND DIETETICS

There is a deep need to reorganize the Teaching Guides and to define methodologies and activities that promote attitudes and behaviors leading to a sustainable culture. The aim of the present work was to design and implement different active and collaborative methodologies in the Degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics in the University of the Basque Country to integrate and to interiorize sustainability and social responsibility cross curricular skill for their future profession.

Ten lecturers responsible for several courses throughout the Degree took part on the study. The language option to carry out undergraduate studies was the used as the base for the methodological design: Basque speakers were allocated in intervention group and Spanish speakers in the control group. Different activities were carried out based on a real scenario (students had to imagine that they worked for the Government and they had to find a sustainable solution).

Active and collaborative methodologies were used in each subject in order to develop the skill:
Subjects from the first course:
- Food deontology, legislation and management (Case Method): Students had to advise a dairy producer to solve the legal requirements for a new organic product to be marketed soon.
- Food chemistry and biochemistry (Group activities): Students had to identify and discuss the opinions collected among surrounding people about oil consumption and reutilization. Next, they had to identify the different kinds of factors involved in the use of edible oil by the population.

Subjects from the second course:
- Human Nutrition (Double convergence divergence): Students had to understand the need for new campaigns against goiter and to assess if the proposals were meaningful from the point of view of nutrition, and include all factors and people involved with endemic goiter.

Subjects from the third course:
-General and Applied Dietetics (Case Method): Students had to solve a real health problem in the Basque Country: the high prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome. The solution had to integrate all factors that can affect the problem and are related to sustainability: diet, exercise, alcohol consumption, etc.
- Food Safety and Quality (Double convergence divergence and Aronson Puzzle): Students had to investigate mercury hazard in tuna, and evaluate sustainability of three trademarks of dairy products studying about production models and products´ characteristics.
- Nutritional Epidemiology (Case Method): Students had to understand the different parts of an epidemiological study and analyze a cohort study critically in a collaborative way. The studies were about the impact of fast food on human health (gestational diabetes), sustainability and society.

Subjects from the fourth course:
- Collective Restoration (Case Method): Students had to design a sustainable service of catering taking into account several factors related to sustainable eating such as the kind of foods and dishes to offer, cooking techniques, waste´s logistics, etc.

This is the first time that the skill of sustainability and social responsibility is developed through active and collaborative methodologies in a continuous way in a Degree of the University of the Basque Country. Due to the importance of the sustainability and social responsibility in a University graduate a greater effort must be made by the lecturers to make students be competent in this skill in their future profession.