Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
initially supported with a grant from the UW Tools-for-Transformation program,
whose charge was to foster efforts that would change the intellectual landscape of the
university. The three-year grant supported the development and linkage of restoration
interests across and within the three UW campuses (Seattle, Tacoma, Bothell). In re-
cent years, the UW has promoted the opportunities that undergraduate students have
to make a difference by taking hands-on, applied courses that solve real problems and
address community needs. Restoration ecology seemed to be an area in which the
promise of this premise could be realized.
With the initial funding, UW-REN supported a variety of activities, including the
development of restoration courses (including online delivery), the establishment of a
certificate in restoration ecology, and the development of student activities and orga-
nizations in restoration. The certificate in restoration ecology was offered to under-
graduate students upon the completion of a basic course in restoration ecology, two
advanced restoration-related courses, and a restoration Capstone course. Many of the
lessons we highlight in this chapter come from this unique Capstone course, which
actually consists of three sequential courses lasting over an entire nine-month aca-
demic year. The restoration courses developed by UW-REN were institutionalized
into established academic units and remain supported by those departments to this
day. Initial funding ceased in 2002, and UW-REN focused its activities into its core
educational mission of the restoration ecology certificate and its underlying courses.
The Capstone Course
The key element of the restoration certificate is a collaborative course sequence that
came to be called the Capstone. In undergraduate education, capstone courses in
general are project-oriented activities that allow students (usually seniors) to integrate
the various areas of disciplinary knowledge that they have accumulated in school to
work on an applied problem. The UW-REN Capstone was designed to go a step fur-
ther in integration, by creating teams of students from different disciplinary back-
grounds to collaboratively address restoration needs in the surrounding community.
Capstone students meet on one campus for lectures and discussions, but spend most
of their time on a team field project. The UW-REN faculty works with community
partners to identify restoration projects that would benefit the local community while
meeting the educational goals of the Capstone. During the summer preceding the
academic year, the community partners (“clients”) prepare a Request for Proposal
(RFP) that forms a starting point for students' work on their restoration project.
Because of the diversity of academic and personal backgrounds UW-REN students
bring from their home departments, we begin the Capstone with some basic skills
training in autumn. This includes lectures and demonstrations on topics ranging
from horticulture and soils to grants and volunteer management. Also during the au-
tumn, student teams of five to six individuals are assembled by the faculty and
matched to projects. This process balances the geographic constraints of student loca-
tion and mobility, student project preferences, and the desire to promote disciplinary
diversity within each team.
