Capstone Projects

Case studies are used ubiquitously in many fields of professional education, including business, medicine, public health, law, and social work. In fields where decision making for achieving organizational and community goals is of central importance, case studies provide a means to gain critically useful experiential learning skills. This course will help you learn how to analyze and think through decision problems. It will focus on case studies that concern sustainability and development. These case studies are designed to encourage readers to use available information and background resources to arrive at decision recommendations.

The objective of the course is that you will learn the key elements of what is involved in creating decision case studies in the field of sustainability and development. More importantly, the course will guide you with step-by-step instructions to create a decision case study yourself. It will walk you through the most important elements of a decision case - a decision problem, a decision maker, a set of options, evaluative criteria, and analysis to identify a recommendation for the decision maker. By working through the materials for this course, you will gain familiarity with how to make decisions in an uncertain and complex environment.