Spring 2027

Food Production Systems and Sustainability

Assesses food production systems through biology, agriculture, and social science lenses, focusing on sustainability, climate change, and global social structures.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Sara Gragg

Summary

1 / 3

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.91 GPA, 93.2% A/AB (n=59 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.90 GPA, 96.6% A/AB (n=58 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.89 GPA, 92.3% A/AB (n=91 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Explain the social, economic, and/or environmental dimension ofsustainability challenges associated with food production systems.

  • Evaluate food production systems for their contribution to, mitigation potential of, and adaption to climate change.

  • Identify ways in which social structures profoundly affect not only people, but also biology, ecology, and our very climate. And the complement: how people's race/class/gender/occupation/nation status within the global social structure, as well as the nature of the global social structure itself, profoundly impacts their ability to cope with changing climate.

  • Critically evaluate the scientific literature and other sources of information related to the sustainability of food systems.

  • Analyze the causes of and solutions for the sustainability of food production,distribution, marketing, consumption, and waste disposal.

  • Develop analytical and problem‐solving skills individually and in teams ofclassmates with diverse worldviews.

  • Communicate effectively information to multiple audiences through multiple medias

  • Develop an aptitude for working with mixed teams including undergraduatestudents

  • Demonstrate research and writing skills to produce academically rigorousliterature reviews

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

(Graduate/professional standing) or junior standing and satisfied Quantitative Reasoning (QR) B

    • Graduate/professional standing
      • junior standing
      • satisfied Quantitative Reasoning (QR) B
      take all
    take one
DYSCI 471

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Any of
    • Graduate/professional standing
    • All of
      • junior standing
      • satisfied Quantitative Reasoning (QR) B

Professors

Spring 2027

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.91 GPA, 93.2% A/AB (n=59 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.90 GPA, 96.6% A/AB (n=58 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.89 GPA, 92.3% A/AB (n=91 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

SARA GRAGG is recorded teaching in Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 002Classroom Instruction0 / 480

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
Download part 1

Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.91 GPA, 93.2% A/AB (n=59 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.90 GPA, 96.6% A/AB (n=58 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.89 GPA, 92.3% A/AB (n=91 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Climate change mitigation and adaptation at local to global scales.
  • Environmental health, resource quality, emissions, land use, and social justice.
  • Intersections of social structures with biology, ecology, and climate.

Skills

  • Evaluating sustainability dimensions and climate change impacts of food production systems.
  • Producing rigorous literature reviews and critically evaluating scientific sources.
  • Developing analytical and problem-solving skills in individual and team settings.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
DYSCI 471 · Spring 2027

Food Production Systems and Sustainability

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:292:024980",
    "course_id": "DYSCI 471",
    "course_uid": "course_050e0f9e25a7fd49f6faaec3",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "024980",
    "source_subject_id": "292",
    "title": "Food Production Systems and Sustainability",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Spring"
  }
]
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Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "53bccff7a29e02b25ec4464918d73015cc7909b957bd97dbe443420740637084",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}