Course pairs interdisciplinary student teams with campus or community partners to work on sustainability-related projects, reflecting and documenting their service learning with a portfolio that ties together their previous certificate courses and the experiential application project. The instructor provides the scaffolding to help students build successful projects and collaborate well with project partners as they address identified needs in the community.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students: Graduate students must meet all requirements plus an additional leadership or research component.
Athena Title
Sustainability Capstone
Non-Traditional Format
Internship/application project.
Undergraduate Pre or Corequisite
SUST 4200/6200
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall and spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
Students will apply systems thinking to real-world problems through knowledge of social, economic, and ecological systems, including limits and interdependence.
Students will demonstrate knowledge of human cultures and their interaction with the natural and physical world.
Students will find sustainable solutions to human-ecosystem challenges.
Students will develop interdisciplinary knowledge and an understanding of the interconnectedness of sustainability challenges that transcends academic disciplines.
Students will gain a local and global intercultural and intergenerational perspective that nurtures empathy, awareness, and respect.
Students will build an informed, ethical, and scholarly sense of citizenship.
Students will integrate certificate experience.
Students will apply problem-solving skills and knowledge to place-based, real-world sustainability challenges.
Topical Outline
Collaboration and Normative competencies: Working with Teams, Project Partners, and Stakeholders
Strategic and Anticipatory Competencies: Project Management: Goals, Deliverables, Tasks, Timelines, and Assessment
Systems and Integrative Problem Solving Competencies: Systems Mapping and Research
Inter/Intrapersonal Competency: Project Implementation, Professional Development, and Critical Reflection
