App-based learning and personal interaction can go hand-in-hand very well. This is what a group of international students enrolled at CHARM-EU experienced recently in a Peek excursion in Szeged, southern Hungary. Their coordinator followed an innovative approach to introduce them to sustainable cereal production as part of the Food Module of this European university programme.
What better place to learn about food production than a farm? And what better person to talk about this than experts from the field? Stakeholder interviews are a powerful way to learn about reality. In this trip, the students listened to several food producers and processors to learn from their years of industry experience. It’s inspiring to see a small locality in Hungary committed to responsible production practices, sharing their experience to students from around the world.
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What’s so innovative about this trip, you may wonder? A common challenge for many modern students is to stay focussed for a longer time (than a TikTok video). To turn this challenge into a motivation, the coordinator programmed his excursion using the Peek app to quiz his students after the interview was done.
- “How can soy help to solve the climate crisis?”
- “Why can sorghum be a suitable grain for the agriculture of the future?”
- “What is the most sustainable method of nutrient replenishment?”
Rather than putting these questions on a piece of paper, the coordinator used the Peek app to provide instant feedback to the students and to create a diverse field trip (including multiple-choice questions, field assignments, picture uploads, etc.). The combination of expert knowledge with a gamification approach created an unforgettable introduction of one of Europe’s most valuable sources of food.
