Join Terrascope!

Class of 2029 — Fixing Island Food Systems

Sustainable agriculture and food security in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico’s food system is marked by an inadequate availability of affordable, fresh food and a high proportion of imported food. These issues lead to substantial health impacts, difficulties providing food after natural disasters, high economic and environmental costs, and limited opportunities for local food producers. Your task will be to reimagine Puerto Rico’s food system to promote food security, public health, resilience to natural disasters, and environmental sustainability, and to identify practical pathways toward enacting your proposed changes.

How to join:

Rank Terrascope as your first choice on the MIT Advising Application and you are good to go!

What You’ll Do in Terrascope:

In the fall class (Subject 12.000 “Solving Complex Problems”), Terrascope students work in teams to develop solutions and present them to a panel of decision-makers and experts. In the spring semester there are two optional classes. In Subject 2.00C/1.016/EC.746 (“Design for Complex Environmental Issues”) students design and prototype specific technologies that address aspects of the problem. In Subject SP.360, “Terrascope Radio” students create a radio program that communicates their ideas to the general public.

Conditions permitting, a spring-break trip enables students to travel to see first hand the problem they have been working on all year. Students meet people who would be affected by their proposed solutions and see the problem in fuller context. The trip is a unifying experience for the entire Terrascope community, strengthening connections across generations of students and among students, faculty, staff and alumni.

Students will gain new knowledge from the Terrascope experience, but more importantly, they will emerge uniquely prepared to tackle complex problems in interdisciplinary, student-led teams.

Want more info?

• • Hear about Terrascope from the student’s perspective
    • See A Heartfelt Review of My Time in Terrascope by Janice Shiu
    • Discover Eight Reasons to Become a Terrafrosh! by Danielle Allison
    • Listen in here to what “Terrascope Is…” by Sherry Zhou

Do you have questions?  Ask us!

Reach out to Kristin Baker.  Feel free to email the whole Terrascope team at the address: terrascope-office@mit.edu or call and leave a voicemail at 617-253-4074 (we’ll call you back!).

Terrascope Classes: