Abstract:

Forces at play such as climate change, urbanization or demographic changes affect the world in which future health professionals will carry out their work. This fact means that university education must adapt to these changes. University-level subjects must be reconditioned so that students can develop a global and anticipatory health perspective. Using epidemiology as a starting point, this work presents an example of how the sustainability point of view can be included in Nutritional Epidemiology subject. Evidence Based Nutrition is used to develope expertise and competences to translate evidence from epidemiological research to public health. The problem-based approach of the activity is that the students play the role of a dietitian-nutritionist who works in the Department of Public Health of the Basque Government, having to analyze the impact that the diet has on the sustainability. In the same way, they have to describe the influence of sustainability-diet axis can have on the health of the population.

Bearing this objective in mind, a set of active dynamics were used for the development of holistic, anticipatory and strategic skills. Individual dynamics were mixed with cooperative and collaborative ones. The number of hours allocated to the activity was nine. Six hours were lecturer-guided lesson and three hours were student self-work. The evaluation of each activity was based on previously designed rubrics for sustainability skills. An example of evaluation was provided in the text for the better comprehension of the criteria. The total weight on the final mark of the course was 9%.

Keywords:

Sustainability, University education, Active and collaborative methodologies, Skills.