About this course
To participate in the Dutch Dairy Student Challenge (DDSC), the student must have (disciplinary) knowledge in his/her field of study and should have successfully completed (at least!) the first wo years of their BSc program. Furthermore, the student should master information literacy, computer literacy and presentation skills; English verbal and writing skills should be on a level which allows full contribution to the project development, and full independent functioning in a student team.
In this specific course we are posing the following question:
How can dairy farms still exist in the future, in a healthy, sustainable and economically feasible way, from the perspective of the animals, the environment, as well as the farmers?”.
In working on this challenge, students are stimulated to employ a trans-disciplinary approach. Projects could combine technical, political, economic, social and sustainability disciplines. The proposed projects could take the form of a prototype (e.g. of a device, a platform, a tool), a system or a policy, depending on the expertise of the students and their chosen direction. In a period of 100 days students will be challenged to redefine this broad challenge to a more specific problem definition, and propose a project plan.
Learning outcomes
After successful completion of this course students are expected to be able to:
- identify a relevant challenge related to sustainable dairy farming and describe its context from a scientific perspective
- gather and analyze information from academic and non-academic resources, and use that information to build a logical narrative towards a clearly-defined objective
- design, plan, and describe an approach that is scientifically sound and achievable within the societal, economical, and environmental constraints
- evaluate the risks, feasibility, and expected societal impact of the proposed research in a critical, realistic and convincing way
- reflect on personal learning goals, based on their own expertise and that of other members and stakeholders