The course builds upon the previous university experience of the student and seeks to develop environmental literacy. From the beginning, Capstone was envisioned as course where students would be required to take a more active role in their education. This approach uses class discussion, assigned writing, reading, and class presentation by groups of students. However, this decision to keep classes small means that about 30 sections and 20 faculty are required each semester in order to offer the course to all UNI students. Administrative support to allow staffing has been crucial to the success of the format.
Students earn two semester hours toward graduation, and they meet for two hours each week.
The students in each section represent a wide range of experience from previous courses and many academic majors. Instructors assign one or more books as required reading in the course. Books that concern single issues like the Exxon Valdez oil spill , sustainable agriculture or climate change, or several issues from various collections of articles or essays are used in the course. Environmental science text books are generally not appropriate in meeting the objectives of capstone. Surveys indicate that capstone students develop an understanding of the complexity and connectedness of the environment through an awareness of the interaction among the various living and non-living components of the earth.