Search Courses
You may search for a Senior Capstone course by selecting a THEME or TERM from the menu at the left. You may also search by entering a part of the title or the instructors name in the box below. For concise listings of all 2021-2022 Capstone offerings, review our Capstone Capsule. If you need assistance, contact the Capstone Office/University Studies at 503.725.5890.
Please refer to the PSU Class Schedule regarding the days, hours, and meeting location. For information about when the new class schedule is available or when you can register for the new term, follow this link: When to Register.
NOTE: Due to the intensive nature of Capstones, students must receive permission from the course instructor prior to the first day of class if they are going to miss the first class session. For on-line Capstones, students must demonstrate active participation during the first week of the term. All Capstone courses factor in student attendance and participation into the final grade which is deeply impacted by missing the first week of the term.
NOTE: "Sustainability" tagged courses will NOT automatically count toward the Sustainability Minor. Students must seek approval from Joseph Maser, Ph.D. in the Environmental Science & Management department to count any Capstone toward that specific minor.
SEARCH BY Title or Instructor: Enter a single word from the title of a Capstone, "gardens", "justice", "literacy", etc., the Course Registration Number (CRN), or a professor's first or last name in the box below.
Instructor Name: Rick Hugo
CRN: 63498
Your course project will be to create a Virtual Field Environment (VFE) which will be used by K-12 classroom teachers and community educators to "visit" local field sites with their students. You can find a list of our VFEs here. Our challenge is to take a VFE beyond the typical virtual tour and create a rich, engaging learning environment that facilitates student-centered inquiry. You must also strive to engage learners from different cultural backgrounds and with different learning...
Fall 2021Fall 2022Fall 2023Spring 2021Spring 2022Spring 2023Spring 2024
Education-Youth Science Outdoors Ecology Sustainability Education
Instructor Name: Anmarie Trimble
CRN: 63520, 80931
In this Capstone we partner with the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA) through hands-on community-based service. Capstone students participate in mentoring programs in NAYA's Learning Center or their College and Career Center, or support NAYA's food sovereignty community garden. There is some possibility that Capstones may also have the opportunity for other service at NAYA, such as advocating for state-wide school adoption of Oregon's new indigenous-created curriculum "Tribal...
Fall 2021Fall 2022Fall 2023Spring 2021Spring 2022Spring 2023Spring 2024Summer 2021Summer 2022Summer 2023Summer 2024Winter 2021Winter 2022Winter 2023Winter 2024
Education Education-Youth social work tutoring Mentoring social justice native american indigenous family NAYA trauma-informed trauma garden healing
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: Laurel Singer
CRN: 81699
Convening Diverse Groups to Resolve Community Issues Creating sustainable solutions to the most critical and pressing issues confronting our communities is only possible when diverse stakeholders are able to come to together to collaborate. This course is designed to give students an opportunity to gain essential knowledge and skills to work effectively in collaboration with others, and to understand how that same collaborative process is successfully being used to solve our most pressing...
Sustainability Global Perspectives Community Health Education Youth
Instructor Name: DeEtte Beghtol Waleed
CRN: 14659
“I learned that I can no longer just turn my head and walk away.”
We are surrounded by violence in many areas of our lives – crime, TV, wars, domestic violence and much more. The class seeks to understand why our culture is violent. We will interview leaders working to overcome violence in the US and other countries to learn how change is possible. Structural violence and the interconnections between violence and poverty will be explored and analyzed in order to learn new strategies to...
Conflict Resolution Conflict International International Relations History Political Science Research Psychology Education Sociology Criminal Justice
Instructor Name: Kimberly Mukobi, kmukobi@pdx.edu
CRN: 14164, 14100, 14057
The Grant Writing for Animals: Wildlife Conservation in Africa class partners with the Kasese Wildlife Conservation Awareness Organization (http://www.kasesewildlife.org) to further its goals of creating wildlife awareness and increasing conservation efforts in Ugandan communities. Students will participate in the various aspects of grant writing, including researching funding sources, ascertaining the needs of the community partner, proposal writing, editing, and formatting. A significant...
Fall 2019Fall 2020Fall 2021Fall 2022
Conservation - Wildlife Education Sustainability Animals Online or Hybri Courses Education-Youth Wildlife Conservation Hybrid or Fully online Hybrid Courses Grant Writing Grantwriting
Instructor Name: Kristin Teigen
CRN: 43682, 63547
This Capstone partners with the Community Alliance of Tenants, Taking Ownership PDX and the Urban League. Students will learn the history of BIPOC communities in Oregon while working with our partners to fight racism, white supremacy and to create a different future for Oregon. Students in this course will learn how to write grants, work directly with organizations centering BIPOC homeowners and tenants and, if they choose, use their own skills and talents to support these organizations. All of...
Fall 2021Fall 2022Spring 2021Spring 2022Spring 2023Spring 2024Summer 2021Summer 2022Winter 2021Winter 2022Winter 2023Winter 2024
Anti-Racism Grantwriting Education Activism Leadership
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: Zapoura Newton-Calvert
CRN: 63538, 80903
The “achievement gap” has been at the forefront of discussions about the U.S. education system since the implementation of NCLB in 2001. The public has been tuned into this so-called “achievement gap” alongside high dropout rates, lack of access to equitable early childhood education, public disinvestment in the education system, disparities in access to higher education, and more. According to the Children’s Defense Fund’s State of America’s Children Report, the gaps (more accurately and...
Fall 2021Fall 2022Fall 2023Spring 2021Spring 2022Spring 2023Spring 2024Summer 2021Summer 2022Summer 2023Summer 2024Winter 2021Winter 2022Winter 2023Winter 2024
Education social justice Education-Youth
Instructor Name: Nariyo Kono
The goal of this course is to provide students professional skills for grant proposal writing in the field of language diversity and sustainability. Along with the proposal writing skills, the students will learn a solid background in historical and societal issues that influence language diversity through hands-on collaboration with current language sustainability efforts. This capstone partners with one of the endangered language communities in the Northwest, specifically, the Warm Springs...
Sustainability Grantwriting Education Online or Hybrid Courses
Instructor Name: Laura Mulas
CRN: 63539
This capstone is designed to provide an opportunity to learn about Spanish culture and society by means of synchronous and asynchronous discussion group forums between American and Spanish middle and high school students. The communities of students will be from: Portland, Oregon, various schools in Washington state and Zamora, Spain. These forums will be between paired classes (one USA and one Spanish) of similar grade and language level and will be facilitated and monitored by both teachers...
Spring 2022Spring 2024Fall 2019Summer 2020Winter 2020Spring 2020
Education - Youth Global Perspectives Online or Hybrid Courses Education International Capstones International Relations social justice
Instructor Name: Joseph Wightman
CRN: 63514, 80924
Leadership Through Mentoring in K-5 Schools - The mentoring of young people takes many forms. Some young people grow up with a sibling, relative or another adult ally who serves as a mentor to them. Some benefit from formal mentoring programs in schools or from community organizations. Not everyone enjoys access to regular mentoring, yet research shows that mentoring has tremendous benefits for both the mentor and the mentee. These benefits include the development of leadership skills,...
Fall 2021Fall 2022Fall 2023Spring 2021Spring 2022Spring 2023Spring 2024Summer 2021Summer 2022Summer 2023Summer 2024Winter 2021Winter 2022Winter 2023Winter 2024
Education-Youth Education Leadership social justice Mentoring
Instructor Name: DeEtte Beghtol Waleed
CRN: 14185
In the past few years we have been inundated with information about sexual assault and the efforts of women, girls, and gender nonconforming people to resist it. More people are aware of the size and seriousness of this problem. In addition to violence in our homes we are increasingly aware of transgender violence, Military Sexual Trauma and violence against women in prisons. Intimate partner violence and sexual assault become even more difficult when the victim is in a foreign country or...
Fall 2019
Gender violence International Global Studies Political Science Research Psychology Sociology Conflict Law Criminal Justice Education
Instructor Name: Alissa Leavitt
CRN: 64816, 63951, 44038
Pathways to Health Equity (Formerly called Health Professionals as Agents of Change)
Influences such as income, living conditions, education, infrastructure, healthcare, social capital, public policy, stress, gender, and race are widely recognized to effect health outcomes. However, the connection between research and practice is sometimes not as well developed or fully articulated.
Students will have the opportunity to work with practitioners to engage the community, including...
Winter 2023
Community Health Population-based health healthcare health equity behavioral health trauma-informed care environmental health community engagement Disabilities Education security; hunger; sustainability; food justice; food equity LGBTQ social work Poverty Awareness Anti-Racism Child and Family Age-friendly Communities College campus Research Refugees physical activity social determinants of health public health social change counseling school-based health maternal & child health oral health community organizing social connections community outreach social isolation faith-based health care
Instructor Name: Nariyo Kono
CRN: 44067
The goal of this course is to give students a solid background in historical and societal issues that influence language diversity through hands-on collaboration with current language sustainability efforts. This capstone partners with endangered language communities in the Northwest (tribal language programs in general and the Warm Springs Tribal Language Program, specifically) to work together to support those programs by giving students “on-the-ground” skills to accompany class studies....
Spring 2020Winter 2021Winter 2022Winter 2023
Online or Hybrid Courses Activism Education Fund Raising indigenous Sustainability
Instructor Name: Annie Knepler
CRN: 63518
This Capstone will partner with the Learning Gardens Laboratory (LGL), a 12-acre garden education site on Portland’s southeast side. Students work collaboratively to gather stories of community gardeners, teachers, and community partners who regularly gather at LGL to learn and farm. Capstone students will gain skills in interviewing, storytelling, and using narrative as a means for social change, in addition to learning about sustainable food systems and the impact of learning gardens.
Spring 2021Spring 2022Spring 2023Spring 2024Spring 2020
Community Health Sustainability Education social justice Ecology Garden-based learning food
Instructor Name: Lydia Fisher
CRN: 45260
Farm Ed for Youth: Growing Stories
"Do you want to help connect school age children to the natural environment at this time when outdoor learning is so important?"
This Capstone will partner with the Sauvie Island Center (sauvieislandcenter.org). The mission of the Sauvie Island Center is “educating youth about food, farming, and the land.” Students will work collaboratively with the Sauvie Island Center staff to develop curriculum for school age children, help the Center to share the...
Winter 2022
Community Health Sustainability Ecology Farm-based learning food Education Storytelling
Instructor Name: Lydia Fisher
CRN: 64815
Do you want to help reconnect school age children to the natural environment after a year of lockdown and remote learning?
This Capstone will partner with the Sauvie Island Center (sauvieislandcenter.org). The mission of the Sauvie Island Center is to “equitably educate elementary school-aged children about food, farming, and the land.” The center runs place-based farm education trips and events at Topaz Farm on Sauvie Island and creates food systems learning content for grade-school...
Fall 2021Spring 2022Winter 2022
Grant Writing Grantwriting; Sustainability Education sustainability and environment
Instructor Name: Suzanne Savaria
CRN: 43660
Students will support in sharing stories of local, socially engaged artists by creating podcasts in collaboration with McDaniel Highschool students. Art Talk Bus Stop is a public art education program and monthly podcast interview series about how artists do their work and make a living. Students learn about arts and cultural work and careers, and get hands-on experience producing alive interview, learning the technology, research and storytelling skills.
Spring 2022Winter 2023Winter 2024
Arts Education
Instructor Name: Kimberly Mukobi
CRN: 43673, 63536
The Animal Empathy Project: Creating Compassion Through Art
Digital art can help us reach wider, more inclusive audiences to tell stories, capture emotions, and grapple with the issues of our time. This fully online Capstone examines the ways humans live with, utilize, and treat nonhuman animals in their everyday lives. Students will reflect on their identities and skills in a collaborative setting to research and create digital art that our community partner can use to advance its wildlife...
Spring 2024Winter 2024
Animals Arts Empathy Education - Youth Education Online Course Online or Hybrid Courses Online or Hybri Courses Global Perspectives Activism