Alignment among environmental programs in higher education: What Food-Energy-Water Nexus concepts are covered in introductory courses?

Figures & data

Figure 1. Distribution and Carnegie Classification of participating universities.

Table 1. A total of 831 artifacts were submitted by 30 participating institutions.

	Level of coding analysis	Number of institutions in sample	Total number of artifacts per sample	Number of artifacts without FEW nexus references (excluded from analysis)	Number of audiovisual artifacts (excluded from analysis)	Number of artifacts coded per round	Number of coders	Minimum inter-coder agreement
First Round	Artifact	30	831	108	95	628	2	89%
Second Round	Paragraph	8	189	4	46	139	4	90%

After excluding 95 audio-visual artifacts, two coders analyzed the remaining 736 artifacts. Of these 736, 108 did not include references to the FEW Nexus, resulting in a total of 628 artifacts included for first round analysis. We began our second-round coding of course materials from eight institutions with 189 artifacts, 46 of which were excluded for being audio-visual artifacts and four of which did not contain FEW Nexus concepts, resulting in a total of 139 artifacts being analyzed at the paragraph level.

Table 2. IES curriculum knowledge areas (from Vincent et al., 2013) used as coding guide.

Natural Sciences	Social Sciences
Biology	Behavioral Social Sciences (e.g., sociology, anthropology, psychology, organization development, cultural studies)
Ecology	Economics (e.g., microeconomics, macroeconomics, ecological)
Chemistry (split into inorganic and organic for coding)	Policy and Public Administration (e.g., law & regulation, policy analysis, program evaluation, organizational theory)
Geosciences (Earth sciences/geology)	Political Science (e.g., government, voter behavior, international agreements, conflict studies)
Other Life Sciences (e.g., zoology, botany, microbiology)	Applied/Professional
Other Physical Sciences (e.g., oceanography, atmospheric sciences)	Agriculture (e.g., soils, range management, organic, sustainable)
Physics	Architecture (e.g., LEED, green design)
Humanities	Business (e.g. management, marketing, organizational theory)
Arts and Esthetics (e.g., expression of ideas through the arts and design)	Education (e.g., pedagogy, curriculum design, outreach)
History (e.g., environmental, natural, political, cultural)	Engineering and Technology (e.g., principles, methodologies, design)
Language Arts (e.g., structure, meaning, metaphor)	Green Materials Design (e.g., green chemistry, molecular toxicology, life cycle analysis)
Literature (e.g., classic environmental, expression of ideas through literature)	Human Health (e.g., toxicology, epidemiology, risk, nutrition)
Philosophy and Ethics (e.g., ontology, epistemology, logic, values, culture, diversity)	Planning and Built Environment (e.g., urban planning, land use planning)
Religion (e.g., theology, philosophy)	Research Design and Ethics (e.g., approaches, methods, ethical considerations)
Interdisciplinary	Waste (split into waste/pollution in ecosystems and waste in built environments for coding)
Climate Change/Disruption (e.g., causes, adaptation, solutions)	Sustainability
Energy Systems (e g. sources & supplies, impacts)	Business/Economic Sustainability (economic development and business practices for sustainability)
Environmental Justice (e.g., history, etiology)	Environmental Sustainability (ecosystems and natural resources sustainability)
Food Systems (e.g., security, distribution, production)	Social Sustainability (social aspects of sustainable development/sustainability
Geography (e.g., physical, economic, cultural)	Sustainability General Concepts (e.g., characteristics, indicators, values)
Natural Resources Management (e.g., conservation, forestry, fisheries)	Sustainability Governance (standards, protocols, reporting, organizations)
Systems Analysis (e.g., complexity, modeling, structure)	Sustainability Science (scientific and technological solutions)
Water Systems (e.g., scarcity, allocation, hydrology)

Table 3. Coding protocol with definitions and examples of FEW Nexus coding approach.

FEW Concept	Definition	Example
Food	A substance consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, fat, and other nutrients used in the human body to sustain growth and vital processes, and to furnish energy.	Modern agriculture and global food commodity chains have pointed us in the other direction, toward a shrinking biodiversity, cultural diversity, knowledge diversity and even taste diversity.
Energy	Refers to renewable and nonrenewable energy used by humans for power (e.g., electricity). Does not include kinetic, potential, or caloric energy.	In 2008, the member-owned electricity cooperative set an ambitious goal to run the entire island on 50 percent renewable energy by 2023.
Water	Water in liquid forms that humans use in some manner, including for purposes such as drinking water, agricultural irrigation, and hydro-electric power.	By the end of the 1980, public health specialists were publicly stating the city would have to substantially increase the treatment of it drinking water source.
Food-Energy	A system that includes both food and energy components.	Transportation related emissions vary according to how food is transported; for example, rail and water transport are much more energy efficient than air or truck transport.
Food-Water	A system that includes both food and water components.	The culprit would be washed-out animal waste lagoons (from hog farms) that would pollute the waterway, an important source of fish for Indigenous people.
Water-Energy	A system that includes both water and energy components.	Worldwide, there are more than 45,000 large hydroelectric dams, plus countless smaller dams built for navigation, flood control, and other uses.
Food-Energy-Water	A system that includes food, energy, and water components.	Pumping, moving, treating, and distributing water for agriculture takes energy at every stage.
N/A	Does not reference food, energy, or water.	Lions hunt in groups.

Table 4. Not all course content explicitly describes explicitly describe connections to food, energy, or water systems.

Examples of text lacking explicitly described FEW Nexus connection (coded n/a)
The desire to study and make sense of nature is most apparent in the many taxonomies and natural histories that were produced during this time period.
Finally, the emergence of sustainability is intrinsically tied to the creation of and reaction to classical capitalist economics in the eighteenth century.
Moreover, industrialization created deep and long-lasting social inequities between Western Europe (and a few poorer European settler societies) and the colonized world, which became poorer and more urbanized after 1800.

Figure 2. Example of FEW Nexus codes indicating different levels of connections between systems.

Figure 3. Percentage of artifacts by type that contain FEW Nexus topics from larger sample of 30 institutions. Audiovisual materials, websites, and in-class activities were excluded from our sample (95 artifacts excluded). A total of 736 text-based artifacts were coded for FEW Nexus connections, with 628 containing explicit references to the FEW Nexus (85%).

Figure 4. Percentage of artifacts by type that contain FEW Nexus topics from our subsample of eight institutions that were subsequently coded at the paragraph level to identify areas of knowledge and FEW Nexus topics. Audiovisual materials, websites, and in-class activities were excluded from our subsample (46 artifacts excluded). A total of 143 text-based artifacts were coded for FEW Nexus connections, with 139 containing explicit references to the FEW Nexus (97%).

Figure 5. Percentage of FEW Nexus components referenced in sample of eight introductory IES courses.

Table 5. Most frequently coded knowledge areas from subsample of eight courses.

Knowledge Area	Number of Coded References	Knowledge Area Definition	Text Example
Agriculture	654	Process of farming/cultivating crops for food, fuel, and other products (e.g., textiles). Includes animal agriculture (raising cows, pigs, chickens, etc. for human consumption).	From experiment involving a variety of crops, researchers have learned that yields can increase by an average of 14% when windbreaks are used.
Behavioral Social Science	609	The study of humans and behavior.	When people think, they generally do not invent concepts but instead they use mental models drawn from their societies and their shared histories.
Climate Change	626	Includes naturally occurring fluctuations in climate, as well as human influenced climate change caused by fossil fuel emissions. Includes references to greenhouse gas emissions, carbon dioxide, methane, etc.  Includes adaptation and mitigation behaviors, as well as description of climate change impacts (e.g., sea level rise, temperature change, flooding, etc.).	There is considerable evidence for myriad anthropogenic climate change impacts, including ice sheet and glacial melting; sea level rise; more frequent hot days and nights over land.
Ecology	1906	Ecology is focused on the interactions between organisms and their environment while Biology is focused more on the living organism’s structure and function.	Abundant acorns draw deer into the woods where they browse on small plants and tree seedlings; Ticks drop off the deer and lay eggs in the leaf litter and when the eggs hatch, the larvae attach to mice, and the life cycle of Lyme disease continues.
Earth Sciences & Geology	631	Branch of science dealing with the physical constitution of the earth and its atmosphere, as well as the science that deals with the earth’s physical structure and substance, its history, and the processes that act on it.	According to this principle, past geologic events can be explained by natural processes we observe operating today, such as erosion by running water, volcanism, and the gradual uplift of the Earth’s crust.
Economics	603	The production, consumption, and transfer of wealth, often monetary resources. Includes macro and micro-scale economics.	For the students who received the graduation intervention (conditional cash transfer), there was a 49 percentage-point increase in enrollment in higher degree programs.
Energy Systems	974	Supplies, production, transport, and consumption of energy. May include fossil fuels and renewables. Does not refer to caloric energy needed for organisms to survive, nor does it refer to physical energy (e.g., kinetic, potential, etc.).	Recent events like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the death of twenty-nine West Virginia coal miners in the worst mining disaster in twenty-five years, and the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant are salient examples of the health and environmental costs, and economic risks, of our current energy sources.
Waste & Pollution in Natural Environments	702	Refers to waste and pollution entering the natural environment (e.g., trash, littering, point and non-point source pollution, individual and industrial pollution, etc.).	It is clear that waste ends up in marine habitats from many different sources, from inefficient industrial waste management to plastic microfibers washed out of our clothing.

Table 6. H (high), M (medium), and L (low) areas of knowledge.

		Knowledge Areas
		Agriculture	Architecture	Arts	Behavioral Social Sciences	Ecology	Climate Change	Conservation	Earth Sciences	Economics	Education	Energy Systems	Engineering & Technology	Environmental Justice	Food Systems	Geography	Green Materials Design	History	Human Health	Inorganic Chemistry	Language Arts	Literature	Natural Resource Management	Organic Chemistry	Other Life Sciences	Other Physical Sciences	Philosophy & Ethics	Physics	Planning in the Built Environment	Policy & Public Administration	Political Sciences	Religion	Research Design & Ethics	Social Sustainability	Sustainability General Concepts	Sustainability Science	Sustainable Governance	Waste & Pollution in Natural Environments	Water Systems
Institution in Subsample	MidAtlantic Private Bachelor’s Granting Institution	H		L	M	H	L	H	L	M	L	M	L	L	L	L	L	L	L			L	L	L			L	L		M	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L
	West Coast Public Master’s Granting Institution	H	L		L	L	L	L		H	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	H	L			L	L			L	L		L	L	L		L	H	H	L	L	L
	Northeastern Private Doctoral Granting Institution	L	L	L	L	H	M	L	L	L	L	M	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L		L	L	L		L	L	L	L	M	L		L	L	L	L	L	M	L
	Northeastern Private Small Liberal Arts College	L		L	L	H		L	H	M		L	L	L	L	L		L	L	L		L	L	L	L	L	L	L		L	L		L	L	H			L	L
	Northeastern Private Small Liberal Arts College	L	L		H		M	L	L	L	L	L	L	M	L	L		L	L		L	L	L				L		M	H	H		L	L	L	L	L	L	L
	MidAtlantic Private Master’s Granting Institution	L	L		L	H		L	L	L		H	L	L	L	L		L	L	L	L		L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L		L	L	L		L	M	L
	MidAtlantic Private Bachelor’s Granting Institution	L			L	H		L	L	L	L	M	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L			L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	H	L
	Midwestern Public Doctoral Granting Institution	L	H		L	L	M	L	L	L	L	H	L	L	L	L	L	L	L		L		L			L	L		M	L	L		L	L	M	L	L	L	L

Areas of knowledge that are L (low) were referenced a few times but largely absent from course materials while blank cells indicate areas of knowledge that were not coded at the paragraph level in our sample. As a reminder, we only coded the top area of knowledge for each paragraph.

Table 7. Top five knowledge areas for each FEW Nexus system and connections between systems with frequencies below.

Rank		FEW Nexus Components/Groups
		Food-Energy-Water	Food-Water	Energy-Water	Energy-Food	Food	Energy	Water
Knowledge Areas	1	Energy Systems (42)	Agriculture (118)	Energy Systems (195)	Energy Systems (57)	Agriculture (336)	Energy Systems (666)	Water Systems (209)
	2	Agriculture (29)	Water Systems (96)	Waste and Pollution in the Natural Env. (40)	Agriculture (30)	Ecology (176)	Climate Change (131)	Waste and Pollution in the Natural Env. (156)
	3	Water Systems (23)	Waste and Pollution in the Natural Env. (48)	Water Systems (33)	Behavioral Social Sciences (29)	Food Systems (164)	Waste and Pollution in the Natural Env. (115)	Ecology (50)
	4	Waste and Pollution in the Natural Env. (21)	Natural Resource Mgmt. (42)	Architecture (22)	Food Systems (22)	Natural Resource Mgmt. (94)	Economics (96)	Planning in the Built Environment (39)
	5	Behavioral Social Sciences (18)	Behavioral Social Sciences & Climate Change (27)	Policy and Public Admin. (14)	Economics (21)	Behavioral Social Sciences (85)	Policy and Public Admin. (74)	Policy and Public Admin. (38)

Table 8. Summary of knowledge area topics related to the FEW Nexus and example quotes to illustrate how the FEW Nexus is presented in course materials.

FEW Nexus Component	Knowledge Area Topics Related to FEW Nexus Component	Exemplar from course materials
Food	Farming practices Effects of agriculture on ecosystem services Food security, distribution, and unequal access to nutritional food Consumption of food resources	Over the past century, global food production has increased faster than human population growth, but hunger remains a chronic problem because food resources are unevenly distributed.
Energy	Sources and supplies of energy Pollution from energy production Sustainable energy futures Costs Policies encouraging energy efficiency Renewable energy as a climate change solution	State-level climate action is benefitting our economies and strengthening our communities: Alliance members are growing our clean energy economies and creating new jobs, while reducing air pollution, improving public health, and building more resilient communities.
Water	Engineering, infrastructure, and architecture for managing water resources Water pollution Ecosystem services related to water resources Policy mechanisms to protect water resources and prevent pollution	Many green stormwater infrastructure systems and practices utilize infiltration because it effectively filters pollutants, slows water movement, provides temporary water storage, and recharges groundwater.
Food-Water	Farming practices and impacts to soil systems Impacts from agriculture to water systems, such as pollution entering waterways through irrigation and runoff, and the resulting disruption of ecosystems (e.g., eutrophication) Human consumption patterns increasing pressure on food and water resources Food production contributing to and being affected by climate change, especially water scarcity as temperatures rise	Unsustainable land and water use, and the impacts of climate change are driving land degradation, including soil erosion, nutrient depletion, water scarcity, salinity, chemical contamination, and disruption of biological cycles.
Food-Energy	Food as a source of energy (i.e., biofuels) Farming practices and resulting energy inputs Consumption of food and/or energy resources, primarily from an individual level (e.g., ecological footprint) though sometimes compared across societies (e.g., Developed vs. Developing Countries) Financing agricultural production and energy use (e.g., subsidies)	Of course, the current allocation of crops has many economic and social benefits, and this mixed use is not likely to change completely. But even small changes in diet (for example, shifting grain-fed beef consumption to poultry, pork, or pasture-fed beef) and bioenergy policy (for example, not using food crops as biofuel feedstocks) could enhance food availability and reduce the environmental impacts of agriculture.
Energy-Water	Water needs for energy production (e.g., hydroelectric, solar, nuclear, etc.) Infrastructure needed to produce energy using water and to manage water resources (e.g., dams, stormwater management, green design, etc.) Impacts to human and natural systems (e.g., energy security, water usage, pollution, etc.) resulting from energy production Policies, laws, and regulations to encourage energy and water efficiency and reduce water pollution from energy production	Another problem with coal production was revealed in 2009 when an earthen dam broke in eastern Tennessee and released billions of gallons (3.8 billion liters) of coal ash sludge into a tributary of the Tennessee River.
Food-Energy-Water	Sources and supplies of energy and resulting impacts to human and environmental systems (e.g., food availability from energy production, impacts on flood safety, and energy security from dams, etc.) Farming practices and their use of food, energy, and water resources Uses of water for food and energy production and water scarcity for these uses considering increased consumption and climate change Waste entering the environment, especially water systems, from production processes, especially from energy and food production Human consumption of food, energy, and water resources as a driver for changes to the FEW Nexus, usually at the expense of ecological processes and the natural environment	One of the main reasons some countries, social groups, or individuals—especially the disadvantaged—are more severely affected by biodiversity loss and ecosystem changes is limited access to substitutes or alternatives. When the quality of water deteriorates, the rich have the resources to buy personal water filters or imported bottled water that the poor can ill afford. Similarly, urban populations in developing countries have easier access to clean energy sources because of easy access to the electrical grid, while rural communities have fewer choices. Poor farmers often do not have the option of substituting modern methods for services provided by biodiversity because they cannot afford the alternatives.

Vincent, S., Bunn, S., Sloane, L. (2013). Interdisciplinary environmental and sustainability education on the nation’s campuses 2012: Curriculum design. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260105844

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