Instructor Name: Sergio Palleroni
Cities harbor significant natural systems, though they are often culturally miscast as the antithesis of nature. The trend in city building over the last couple of millennia has increasingly focused on making our cities more efficient machines to support human habitation. New trends and a study of alternative historical models show us, though, that cities have the potential to contribute to the planet's capacity to support humans as well as other species. To promote a greener city, we must...
Sustainability Education-Youth Community Health Retired-course
Instructor Name: Cynthia Gomez
Social Justice Education for Adolescents is an advanced exploration of diversity and social justice in the United States. Capstone students are provided with a framework for understanding specific forms and the interlocking systems of oppression; exploring how oppression affects our lives; taught teaching and training conceptual frameworks about oppression and diversity; and an application of these ideologies and skills in community settings. Please contact gomezc@pdx.edu for further...
Retired-course
Instructor Name: Jack Corbet
Following three campus class sessions in July and August, students will spend two weeks in the southern state of Oaxaca, Mexico. This international capstone explores sustainability and environmental activism in Oaxaca, Mexico. Given the increasing interconnectedness between Mexico and the United States we want to understand how Mexican families and communities demonstrate environmental awareness and ultimately begin to make behavioral choices by opting for sustainable approaches to everyday...
Sustainability Global Perspectives Community Health International Capstones Retired-course
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Some of the essential questions driving the curriculum of this Capstone are: How can Art be a force for social change? How is it? What limits, if any, should there be? What are the differences between change and voice? What are the differences between protest and change?
This course is open to anyone intrigued with the questions raised by public art (and possibilities of Art) in our society. This capstone should be of particular value and interest to students who have a desire to teach, create...
Education-Youth Community Health Arts Retired-course
Instructor Name: Mary Ann Schmidt
CRN: 81658
Students will work in partnership with the Clackamas River Basin Council to monitor over twenty stream sites both public and private. Local land owners will provide access to their stream side properties in order for students to collect and analyze water samples. Students will provide creek side landowners with information on the quality of their local surface water, and also report their river basin wide project results to the Clackamas River Basin Council.
This course involves field and lab...
Sustainability Research Education Science Retired-course
Instructor Name: Vicki Reitenauer
In this course, each student will explore what it means to work for community change by engaging in a committed community service experience of at least 3 hours per week with a community partner of her/his choice and exploring the meaning of that work through reflection, dialogue, readings, activities, and collaborative projects. This course is intended to allow students with longstanding volunteer commitments to continue those commitments in the fulfillment of their Capstone requirement,...
Retired-course
Instructor Name: Barry Messer
CRN: 81663
This course addresses the health of cities with respect to the community stewardship of its watersheds. Students are challenged in a learning and community development process of discovery and direct involvement. The essential elements of the Capstone focus on the factors that can contribute to the health of Portland's watersheds. Students work with the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services and a neighborhood group on projects that may include "hands on" activities and/or community outreach...
Research Community Health Sustainability Retired-course
Instructor Name: James Hillegas
Documenting Sustainability in the Pacific Northwest In 1989, the World Commission on Environment and Development defined sustainable development as "[development that] meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations." As the 21st century progresses, the concepts of sustainable development and sustainability have become increasingly complex. Partnering with Northwest History Network, this class will explore the idea of sustainability by looking at its...
Sustainability Research Retired-course
Instructor Name: Leopoldo Rodriguez
Rural communities in NW Argentina are among the poorest in the country. Lacking the rich soils of the Pampas, facing more extreme climatic conditions, and subject to a heavily concentrated land tenure system, agricultural production, the mainstay of the region’s economy, has failed to raise the standard of living of the bulk of the population. The northward expansion of soybean production into marginal lands, while providing new economic opportunities for large landowners, threatens small rural...
Sustainability Global Perspectives International Capstones Retired-course
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Students in this Capstone will review, research and reflect on the impact of the incarceration of women, the unique needs of female inmates and the diversity of individuals in correctional facilities through structured activities, required readings, video, dialogue and reflective writing. Through the study of existing prison garden programs, students will develop a model for a garden program at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility and identify available resources and potential community partners...
Retired-course
Instructor Name: Vicki Reitenauer
In this Capstone, students will work intensively to create written work individually and in collaboration with others. Students will investigate a variety of forms and sources of writing as mechanisms for both personal expression and social change, will generate new writing in weekly writing group sessions, will serve as writing partners/coaches with each other, and will work cooperatively in small groups to design and complete writing projects in collaboration with community partners.
Retired-course
Instructor Name: Annie Knepler
Grant Writing for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance Grant writing skills are critical to the survival of non-profit organizations. In this course, we partner with Portland’s Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) to help them increase their capacity by developing grants for specific projects. The BTA (http://www.bta4bikes.org/) works to promote bicycling and improve bicycling conditions in Oregon and SW Washington. Through reading, writing, research, and presentations, students in this...
Sustainability Research Grantwriting Retired-course
Instructor Name: Joshua D Binus
The Pacific Northwest has earned an international reputation for innovative environmental policies, from land-use planning to organic farming to solid waste recycling and more. Oregon’s business leaders, non-profit organizations, and elected officials have been working to build on this historical legacy in order to position the state as a global leader in sustainable development. Through this capstone project, since 2006, students have developed what is now referred to as the Sustainability...
Retired-course
Instructor Name: Mary Ann Schmidt
CRN: 64095
Quality Assurance for Volunteer Stream Monitoring.Science Background Not Required.
Students will coordinate and implement all aspects of the quality assurance project plan (QAPP) for the Student Watershed Research Project (SWRP)'s volunteer monitoring program. Students will work as a team to ensure data quality for the 15 high school groups involved in SWRP. Non-science majors are encouraged to become "citizen scientists" through their participation in this capstone.
Potential Students for...
Education Sustainability Research Science Retired-course
Instructor Name: Vicki Reitenauer
In this Capstone course, PSU students will serve as trip leaders and mentors to Oregon high school students in Camp Fire Columbia’s Xploregon program, a summer “road trip” that engages teens in a 12-day youth-led adventure.
This intensive, immersive experience helps high school students broaden their academic and personal horizons, build leadership skills, and promote active civic engagement through service projects at various sites along their route, and it requires PSU Capstone...
Retired-course
Instructor Name: Annie Knepler
CRN: 64111
This course will partner with Portland’s Community Cycling Center, helping them increase their capacity by developing grants for specific projects. The Community Cycling Center works to broaden access to bicycling and the benefits of cycling. Their vision is to build a vibrant community where people of all backgrounds use bicycles to stay healthy and connected. In order to write a successful grant proposal, one must gather up as much knowledge about the topic and the organization as possible....
Grantwriting Sustainability Transportation Community Health Research Retired-course
Instructor Name: Lisa Jo Frech
CRN: 44078
Grant writing skills are critical to the survival of many non-profit environmental organizations. In this course you will learn grant writing skills by developing real grant proposals for Rising Tide. Rising Tide (http://www.portlandrisingtide.org/) is an international, all-volunteer, grassroots network of groups and individuals who organize locally, promote community-based solutions to the climate crisis and take direct action to confront the root causes of climate change. In order to write a...
Fall 2022Winter 2023
Retired-course