Semester 1: Environmental Action Project

Once your proposal is finalized, your grade will essentially be based on how well you execute your proposal, so keep that in mind as you prepare it.

Final Due Date: Monday January 13 (groups will present their project results to the class at that time)

Proposal Guidelines: written proposal due Tuesday Oct 16

1. Overview: Provide a short overview of what you plan to do and why (no more than a paragraph).
2. Rational: Provide background information regarding why this project needs to be done and explain what you hope your project will accomplish. Be as specific as possible in terms of setting goals. Depending on what the project is, you should include references or other info that you already have to substantiate the need for your project or that help define your goal. For example, Abby has a lot of information regarding energy use at CPS, so she would provide a summary of this information in this section, and explain the potential savings that solar panels would provide. She should cite the people who have helped compile this info. Jamie and Matt are trying to improve the recycling program at CPS, so they'd want to provide background info regarding the value of recycling aluminum, plastic, etc and cite their sources. This section will probably be 1-2 pages long.
3. Methods: Here's where you explain exactly what you plan to do. Be really specific - I want to know that you've really thought things through and have a plan.

You should break this part into these sections:

Procedure: The activities that will actually be done as you carry out your project, including the materials you need (and exactly how you plan to get them - if you want me to get them for you please make that clear) and a rough timeline (get out a calendar for this).Make a list of the people whose help or cooperation you need. Have you contacted them to make sure they can help you? You don't need to include me in this.

Division of Labor (for groups with more than one person): how will the work of the project be divided amongst you? Who is responsible for what? You have all done enough group work that it's probably clear that the more specific you are in defining roles the better. I will build an evaluation rubric that each person in the group can use to provide feedback about the other members of the group and reflect on the process.

Potential Obstacles: What are likely to be the main problems that you encounter as you carry out your project? Are there ways to plan ahead to ameliorate them?

Benchmarks: I am setting three dates to serve as progress report benchmarks. On those dates you need to give me a brief written update of what you've accomplished, the problems you are running into, etc.For now: look at the timeline you created above and set some specific goals to have done by these benchmark dates:

Benchmark 1: Monday, Nov 5

Benchmark 2: Monday, Nov 26

Benchmark 3: Monday, Dec 17

4. Assessment of Success: How will you measure/determine whether or not your project had the desired impact? Some kind of "before and after" assessment is ideal, so think of clear ways to do a comparison.