Yesterday I began a free online course from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health through their OpenCourseWare program. It’s a 6-week, at your pace course called An Introduction to the U.S. Food System. Each week’s module contains video lectures, related readings, and a quiz. I’m halfway through the first module’s lectures, and I am very pleased with the course format and the information delivered thus far. It feels like a serious course, not something quickly thrown together and dumbed down for the masses. Here is the list of weekly modules:

• Week 1: Introduction to Food Systems, Equity and the Environment
• Week 2: Food Systems, Food Security and Public Health
• Week 3: Public Health and Environmental Implications of Industrial Models of Food Production
• Week 4: Food and Farm Policy
• Week 5: Alternative Approaches to Food Production
• Week 6: Diet, Food Environments, and Food Access

I’ll post interesting tidbits here, but it’s not too late if you want to sign up yourself! Click here to go to the Coursera site.