Capstone Project: Directions and Requirements

This course looks at the processes that shape the coastal zone, produce coastal hazards, mitigate those hazards through engineering, impact coastal societies and economies, and influence public policy and planning to reduce vulnerabilities and risks. The capstone project is an opportunity for you to assemble and integrate this wide array of processes – and to apply modern Earth Science principles of systems thinking – into a single project.

Your finished product will be one presentation-quality PowerPoint created using the Coastal City Slide template. This presentation will encapsulate the key concepts learned in the course relative to one coastal city. You will gather and record details about your city and submit these details as assignments when prompted at certain stages in the course.

Overview of Capstone Project Stages

Stage 1: In Module 1, you will download two PowerPoint files. The first is the Coastal Vulnerability Audit Tool (CVAT): CVAT Coastal City Audit. The second is the Capstone Coastal City Slides. Also, in Module 1, you will be given a list of approved coastal cities to select from and you will submit your top choices. You will then be assigned one city to be the focus of your project for the rest of the semester.
Stages 2-4: Throughout the semester, you will complete the Coastal Vulnerability Audit Tool (CVAT) PowerPoint for your city. At each stage, you will record information and submit it to the instructor for feedback. You will edit and refine your work based on that feedback. You will you the information you collect to develop your Coast City Slides PowerPoint Presentation as your final project submission.
1. Stage 2: You will record information on the Physical Systems to be turned in during Module 8. The instructor will provide feedback for you to make edits to your notes.
2. Stage 3: You will record information on the Human and Engineering Systems, to be turned in during Module 11. The instructor will provide feedback for you to make edits to your notes.
3. Stage 4: You will record information on the Vulnerability, Planning, and Action; Resiliency Policy, Planning, and Actions; Site-Specific Concerns and Considerations; Recommended Resiliency Action Plans; and References and Key Resources during Module 13. The instructor will provide feedback for you to make edits to your notes.
Stage 5: During Stage 5, you will submit the narrated Coastal City Slides, using information collected on your CVAT. This narrated presentation will summarize and illustrate the physical, human, and engineering aspects of your city and highlight aspects of its coastal vulnerability, and the policy and actions taking place to address these vulnerabilities. Your final presentation will also include your site-specific concerns for your city and provide recommendations for increasing coastal resilience.

Directions and Requirements

To complete your Capstone you will work to complete the Coastal Vulnerability Audit Tool (CVAT) PowerPoint using the template: CVAT Coastal City Audit in stages throughout the semester. The CVAT serves as an outline to aid you as you develop your capstone project. As you will see, each section of the CVAT is organized hierarchically to follow the content of the course. You will compile notes about your coastal city on topics indicated in the CVAT PowerPoint and submit the three stages of the CVAT PowerPoint as indicated in the table below and on the course calendar (Capstone Stages 2, 3, 4).

Coastal City Slides

In Stage 5 you will complete the Coastal City Slides PowerPoint using the Coastal City Slides PowerPoint template with maps, relevant illustrations, graphs, and other data compiled in assessments. Follow the stages to make sure you don’t miss anything.

Goals of your Coastal City Slides Presentation: This separate PowerPoint presentation should contain the graphics and summary for your project. You can make the presentation your own by editing and adapting the slides provided. Be creative but stay within the basic framework to include required components, following the guidelines below. Be sure to include a narration. Your presentation should be suitable to present to an audience to convey the most important concepts in a 10-15-minute presentation.

Components of your finished Capstone Project

The completed project should comprise:

Your Coastal City Slides PowerPoint presentation, consisting of approximately 12-15 slides, using this template: Coastal City Slides (which you previously downloaded from Canvas).
This presentation uses the most important information you gathered on your Coastal Vulnerability Audit Tool (CVAT slides) during the semester, along with illustrations to tell the story of your coastal city.
You will follow these minimal guidelines to complete your presentation:

A title slide.
A slide including at least one map, annotated using text and symbols in PowerPoint, conveying the most important points about the city.
At least eight (8) figures on 4-8 separate slides (photos, graphics, graphs of data ) that help the viewer understand the details about your chosen city. Include captions for all figures and reference the source of the image. Figures should include graphs or other kinds of data, as well as photos. Remember to use data resources that you have used during the course, including the elevation profile completed in Stage 2.
Summary pages (2) with bullet points summarizing the most important take-away messages you want to get across about your city.
One (1) page outlining your site-specific concerns (from CVAT).
One (1) page outlining your Recommended Resiliency Actions for your city.
A list of references for all sources used in your research, written in citation format.
An audio narration for each slide either in PowerPoint or MP4. Be concise and keep each slide to 30-60 seconds. Plan and write out your narration and read it, rather than ad-lib.

Project Deliverables (Stages) and Rubric

Below is the complete list of tasks and deliverables you'll complete this semester related to the Capstone Project. More details on each stage of the Capstone will be available throughout the course.

Capstone Project Deliverables and Rubric
Capstone Project Stage	Document: Section	Details	Grading	Max Points
Stage 1 (CVAT)	CVAT: Coastal City Selection	Download the "CVAT Coastal City Audit" and "Capstone Coastal City Slides" PowerPoint files in Module 1. Submit your city selection choices to Capstone Project: Stage 1 (City Selection). The instructor will post the list of cities against everyone’s name in the assignment comment box by the end of Module 3.	You will receive one point for submitting your city choices.	1
Stage 2 (CVAT)	CVAT: Physical System Assessment: Setting and Coastal Hazards	Complete Stage 2 of the CVAT Coastal City Audit PowerPoint (Physical System Assessment: Setting and Coastal Hazards) and submit it by the due date. The instructor will grade your work and provide feedback where needed to help you improve your project.	Accurate and detailed characterization of the physical setting and coastal hazards in the student’s chosen coastal city. Provides details and examples and uses terms from class materials (10 points); Describes the physical setting and coastal hazards, but some important information is less than accurate. Few details (6 points); Description of physical setting and regional and local coastal hazards contains significant inaccuracy/ missing information (4 points); Poor attempt to describe the physical setting and coastal hazards (2 points); No information on these topics (0 points).	10
Stage 3 (CVAT)	CVAT Stage 3a: Human System Assessment CVAT Stage 3b: Engineering and Infrastructure Assessment	Complete Stage 3 of the CVAT Coastal City Audit PowerPoint including Stage 3a: Human System Assessment and Stage 3 b: Engineering and Infrastructure Assessment and submit by the due date. The instructor will grade your work and provide feedback where needed to help you improve your project.	Thorough and accurate analysis of the human systems and the hard and soft engineering and structural and non-structural strategies/ coastal defenses used by the city (10 points); Mostly complete; Some inaccuracies/ misinterpretation of the human system and the strategies for coastal defenses and mitigation used by the city (6 points); Many inaccuracies/ misinterpretations of the human system and strategies for coastal defenses and mitigation used by the city (4 points); Poor attempt to analyze the human system and coastal defense strategies (2 points); No Information on these topics (0 points).	10
Stage 4a and 4b (CVAT)	CVAT Stage 4a: Vulnerability, Planning, and Action CVAT Stage 4b: Resiliency Policy, Planning, and Action	Complete Stage 4a and 4b of the CVAT Coastal City Audit PowerPoint: Stage 4a: Vulnerability, Planning, and Action, and Stage 4b: Resiliency Policy, Planning, and Action and submit by the due date. The instructor will grade your work and provide feedback where needed to help you improve your project.	Thoroughly describes all relevant vulnerability and resiliency planning strategies and policies the city currently uses to mitigate coastal hazards and outlines potential resiliency measures (policy and projects) that could be appropriate. (10 points). Describes vulnerability and resiliency planning and potential policies and projects, but the level of detail or clarity could be improved. (6 points). Description of vulnerability and resiliency planning and action items are sketchy, and details are missing (4 points). Very little information is provided regarding vulnerability and resiliency planning and action strategies (2 points). No information on these topics (0 points).	10
Stage 4c-e (CVAT)	4c. CVAT: Site-Specific Concerns and Considerations; Recommended Resiliency Action Plans; and References and Key Resources	Complete drafts of the Site-Specific Concerns and Considerations, Recommended Resiliency Action Plans, and References and Key Resources sections on your Final CVAT. The instructor will grade your work and provide feedback where needed to help you improve your project. The completed sections must be included in the Coastal City Slides (Stage 5).	Includes a draft list of references, key resources, and notes accumulated during the semester on site-specific concerns and considerations; and recommended resiliency action plans; to be refined and submitted in final Coastal City Slides.	2
Stage 5: Final (Coastal City Slides))	Coastal City Slides: Site-Specific Concerns and Considerations	Include a slide with your final version of Site-Specific Concerns and Considerations in your Coastal City Slides.	Includes at least 5-6 excellent, well thought out concerns/ considerations (5 points); Includes 4-5 acceptable concerns/ considerations (3 points); Includes 2-3 brief concerns considerations (2 points); 1-2 concerns considerations, briefly described (1 point); No concerns/ considerations (0 points).	5
Stage 5: Final (Coastal City Slides)	Coastal City Slides: Recommended Resiliency Action Plans	Include a slide with your final version of your Recommended Resiliency Action Plans in your Coastal City Slides.	At least 5 suggested planning/policy Items are discussed in detail. Provides detailed insight into the coastal city’s planning for coastal hazards. Applies class materials (5 points); 3-5 suggested planning/policy items discussed in detail. Provided insight into the coastal city’s planning for coastal hazards. Applies class materials (3 points); At least 2 suggested planning /policy items discussed. Little application of class materials (2 points); 1-2 suggested planning/policy items discussed. Poor application of class materials (1 point); No suggested planning /policy items discussed (0 points).	5
Stage 5: Final (Coastal City Slides)	Coastal City Slides: References and Key Resources	Include a References slide with a list of references for all sources used in your research, written in citation format, in your Coastal City Slides	More than 8 high-quality references, written correctly as a citation with an online link included (5 points); 4-6 Good references. Includes descriptors; Online link included (3 points); 2-4 OK references; have online link only with, no written citation (2 points); 1-2 poorly written references or sources of poor quality; online link only (1 point); No references (0 points).	5
Stage 5: Final (Coastal City Slides)	Coastal City Slides: Overall	Complete the Coastal City Slides Presentation, including narration, summary, maps, photos, and figures, to the story of your coastal city.	An excellent presentation contains all the required elements. (5 points); Most of the required elements, including narration, are complete and presented well; some details are inaccurate/ lacking. (3 points); Some aspects of the presentation needed more work; elements missing; the student did not follow all guidelines; sloppy presentation/ grammar, etc. (2 points); Poor presentation; lack of attention to detail; many elements missing; little application of class material (1 point); No presentation submitted (0 points)	5
Stage 5: Final (Coastal City Slides)	Coastal City Slides: Summary Slides	Include pages that summarize your research, highlighting the key points about your coastal city.	At least two summary pages included, effectively summarizing the most important take-away messages about the coastal city (5 points); One summary page summarizing main points about the coastal city (4 points); Summary covers some main points but could be more thorough (3 points); Summary is lacking in detail (2 points); No Summary page (0 points).	5
Stage 5: Final (Coastal City Slides)	Coastal City Slides: Maps and Figures	Include relevant, annotated, and referenced maps, photos, and other graphics to illustrate the most important points about your coastal city.	The presentation contains at least eight (8) excellent, annotated, and referenced figures and illustrations, including maps, photos, graphics, data, etc. (8 points). The presentation contains adequate figures and illustrations to convey the main points. (6 points); Presentation contains few figures; inadequate or missing captions; more information needed for conveying full meaning (3 points); Presentation is lacking in figures and illustrations (2 points); Presentation contains no figures or illustrations (0 points).	8
Stage 5: Final (Coastal City Slides)	Coastal City Slides: Audio Narration	Include a narration for each slide - approximately 30 seconds per slide - which summarizes key points shown in slides.	Narration is well constructed, interesting, and succinct, conveying important information about the city (5 points); Narration is adequately executed, but lacks some elements (3 points); Narration is lacking or missing for some slides (2 points) Poor narration (1 point); No Narration (0 points).	5
			Total Points Possible	71