Honors Course Archive

This course will guide students in the skill of interpretation, by presenting performance arts emerging and that have emerged from the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean.

We will take a perspective that locates the past and future in the present, to better understand and convey the immediacies and embodiments of performing arts. Understanding performance art as oral history in its broadest definition will provide students with entry into how people express and embody historical experiences, engage in arts as activism, compose music within and despite inequalities, live with hurricanes, and contribute to widely known culinary practices.

Students will engage with examples of specific performing arts from many genres through music recordings, representations of dance, theater and Carnival performances, literature, film, storytelling, foodways, and representations of funerary practices and other expressions.

Arts will instigate our interpretations within interdisciplinary humanities frameworks to discuss race, experiences of history, aesthetics, religious studies, what art does, folklore studies, ethnomusicology and cultural anthropology. We will reflect on artistic expressions that travel beyond a cultural or geographical area, and on how some producers thereof often embody and make place.

Students will be asked to have fun, to actively participate, and to regularly produce their own syntheses of humanities theoretical frames with interpretations of Gulf Coast and Caribbean artistic expressions, including in a digital storytelling project.

Through a variety of reading material, with a focus on a set of graphic novels, “(Near)/Middle East Illustrated” discusses verbal and visual expressions in order to represent Near and Middle East.

The course develops an understanding of imagined/promoted diversity through study of graphic novels and argues that diversity in the region is much more complicated. As students think about and discuss Orientalism, stock imagery, reporting vs. talking, facts vs. functions through short reading assignments, they will learn about history and today of the Near and Middle Eastern cultures.

Through visual depictions of most commonly discussed issues in the form of graphic novels in the region, students will be encouraged to incorporate relevant video games and anime in their projects or portfolio assignments.

This seminar course will utilize a flipped classroom model to investigate all aspects of pain; from the anatomy and physiology and psychology that create this common complaint, to the sociology, history, ethics, legal and medical issues that are associated with pain. This course does not presuppose any educational background and is open to students in any major.

This course has several components/goals: 1. A systematic review of the state of A.I. and the areas of our society and economy which are currently most affected by A.I.; 2. Deeper investigations into the effects, currently and in the near future, of specific applications of A.I. with a goal of understanding the technology sufficiently to make realistic projections as to its eventual impact.; 3. Understanding the existential challenges of A.I. to what it means to be human in contrast to machines, machines that may be able to do everything a human does. ; 4. Understand the mechanisms of machine learning and contrast them with human learning. The course has: 1. Extensive reading of current literature and media; 2. Many short essays on specific examples of advances in A.I.; 3. Several presentations, both within a group as well as individually, 4. A term paper and presentation in which the students are challenged to put advances in A.I. into the perspective of where our culture and society are going.

In this course students will read and think about Arctic and Antarctic ice loss due to climate change and then distill these scientific articles, reports, films, or books into pieces of writing for non-scientists. This is a critical practice for scientists, but also for anyone who wants to write for the public and communicate broadly. Effective communication of science is vital to society. We all need to understand the implications of declines in snowpack, coastal erosion, Arctic sea-ice loss, Greenland ice melting and instability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The goal of this course is for students to gain experience writing in styles read by the public and on scientific topics that matter to everyone. Following the model of the Calderwood seminars, students will read, write, edit, and share perspectives about ice and climate change.

This is offered jointly through Honors and Earth and Space Sciences (ESS option is not limited to Honors students).

Juniors and seniors preferred, interested sophomores should contact instructor; contact instructor to be put on waitlist if course is full

Students from majors and minors in the College of the Environment will be able to apply their scientific background to this process, but all motivated students are eligible to enroll.

In today’s world organizations in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors must interact well for the sake of their own organization and societal needs, but they face many challenges in doing so. Students in HONORS 232:Multisector Collaboration for Societal Change will have the opportunity to explore the dynamics of interorganizational, multisector collaboration in a discussion-based seminar. Students will participate in discussions, develop communication strategies for interorganizational interactions, and analyze real-world instances of multisector collaboration.

The centerpiece of the course is a 5-week simulation in which each student has a role in a (mock) multisector community task force– situated in a fictional mountain town– that negotiates the creation of a proactive, wildfire mitigation plan. Through the simulation, students will apply knowledge gained from course readings, and develop skills in assessing other stakeholders’ needs and motives, building alliances, communicating constructively through disagreements, and developing multilateral agreements for the collective good.

The course will offer students a fundamental understanding of the process of social innovation, and the role that social enterprises can play in addressing population health challenges. Through a combination of lectures, guest speakers, case studies and a team project, students will learn how organizations can advance work that has a positive societal impact while also remaining financially sustainable.

The Ecology of Urban Seattle examines social, design, political, and environmental factors that promote healthy urban neighborhoods and the integration of urban communities and ecological realities. We will use these interactions to gain a deeper awareness of how these systems function in relationship to each other, to social and economic diversity, and to growth management and climate change. We will use a Race and Social Justice (RSJ) screen as a key element in evaluating how communities are shaped.

Cities function as a place where human communities come together to work, live, and interact. They also exist in a specific social, political, and ecological context, including the relationship between development and the environment, the interaction of human habitation and natural systems, and the relationship of human activities to the health of diverse cultures and the long-term viability of the local and global climate.

This class tells the story of the emerging urban paradigm built around resilience and sustainability, along with the social context through which that has evolved and can evolve in the future. Participants will study four communities, reviewing their history and ecological context, and examining the evolution of neighborhood development. The instructor will lead the class through an RSJ review of each community, beginning with an introduction to the technique and presentation on the initial neighborhood, and leading to a student paper on the fourth neighborhood in which each student will apply the RSJ screen.

This course examines cultural visions of the local landscape through time. We will start with visions of the pre-European landscape, both from the perspective of Native Americans, and early European explorers who kept detailed journals and sketches. We will then focus on the origins and philosophy of our regional wilderness preservation movement (juxtaposed against a separate vision of resource extraction), a mainstay of American conservation that was in large part responsible for preserving the iconic landscapes that continue to make our burgeoning region such a desirable place to live. We will spend time critically examining wilderness as both a concept and a place, paying special attention to the human/nature divide, and a number of narratives around equity, privilege, and cultural marginalization that stem from the institution of wilderness. We will ask whether wilderness has been a successful conservation framework, who benefits from wilderness as an institution, and what role wilderness (or a modified vision of the natural landscape) will play for the people of our region going forward. By understanding the historical tensions and frameworks that define our regional landscape, we will be able to shed light on current land-use controversies, as well as identify new themes that are unique to our time. The course will draw readings from a variety of sources and disciplines including history, art history, historical journals, nature writing, biology, psychology, current events, and recently published editorials, and will pay special attention to underrepresented and historically marginalized cultures and groups. There will be one campus-based walking field trip, and a possible optional field trip further afield. Your grade will be based on contributions to discussion, a creative research-based project and presentation, and one essay.

The key questions this course addresses are How do people talk to each other in different languages? Does the language we speak determine who we are? What is the relationship between language and thought, culture, national identity? We consider crosslinguistic differences and similarities with respect to conceptualizations of Moral Concepts, Friendship and Love, Freedom, Homeland, Politeness and Rudeness and Gender. Students are required to write 2 commentaries and a final term paper. Honors students are expected to write a longer, more in-depth final paper and do one additional commentary in which they reflect on universal vs. culture-specific aspects of language and how their understanding has changed during the course.

This undergraduate seminar examines the particular forms in which Chicana feminist theoretical practices in the art of solidarity are embodied, including theoretical texts, poetry, music, and other creative works. Seminar considers how Chicana feminist theory has transformed and been transformed by intellectual, poetic, and aesthetic traditions as it moves throughout the U.S. borderlands and beyond. Each seminar meeting consists of a brief lecture, discussion break-out groups, a mid-way break, and a viewing/listening to relevant film, media or audio texts or assignment workshop. It is linked to the 2021 Plurifeminisms Against Extractivism: Art/Law across Abiayala.

In this capstone course, a portfolio studio, students will complete the Interdisciplinary or College Honors Program by creating educational narratives within vibrant, creative, online portfolios. Each student will reflect upon the intersection of formal coursework and experiential learning by exploring, collaborating, articulating, testing out, refining, and showcasing the Honors portfolio to a community of peers and mentors. Using portfolio platforms introduced in Honors 100, students will be asked to creatively reflect on the connections between and across their UW courses and disciplines, as well as to consider in-classroom knowledge and its interface with academia and experiences outside of the classroom.

In this capstone course, a portfolio studio, students will complete the Interdisciplinary or College Honors Program by creating educational narratives within vibrant, creative, online portfolios. Each student will reflect upon the intersection of formal coursework and experiential learning by exploring, collaborating, articulating, testing out, refining, and showcasing the Honors portfolio to a community of peers and mentors. Using portfolio platforms introduced in Honors 100, students will be asked to creatively reflect on the connections between and across their UW courses and disciplines, as well as to consider in-classroom knowledge and its interface with academia and experiences outside of the classroom.

For Biochemistry majors and molecular and cell biology majors. Core concepts in biochemistry, including protein structure, compartmentalization of reactions, thermodynamics and kinetics in a biological context, energy production, and regulation of metabolic pathways. HONORS BIOC covers the same topics as BIOC 440, but emphasizes group exercises and analysis of primary literature.

Introduction to systematic inorganic chemistry: representative elements, metals, and nonmetals. Includes coordination complexes, geochemistry, and metallurgy. Additional material on environmental applications of basic chemistry presented. Includes laboratory. No more than the number of credits indicated can be counted toward graduation from the following course groups: CHEM 162, CHEM 165 (5 credits); CHEM 165, CHEM 312 (5 credits).

Chemistry majors and other students planning three or more quarters of organic chemistry. Structure, nomenclature, reactions, and synthesis of organic compounds. Theory and mechanism of organic reactions. Biomolecules. Introduction to membranes, enzyme mechanisms, prosthetic groups, macromolecular conformations, and supramolecular architecture. No more than 4 credits can be counted toward graduation from the following courses: CHEM 239, CHEM 337.

CSE 142 will cover basic programming-in-the-small abilities and concepts including procedural programming (methods, parameters, return values) , basic control structures (sequence, if/else, for loop, while loop), file processing, arrays and an introduction to defining objects. The Honors CSE 390 course will be a special topics discussion section decided on by the instructor. 

CSE 143 is a continuation of CSE 142. Concepts of data abstraction and encapsulation including stacks, queues, linked lists, binary trees, recursion, instruction to complexity and use of predefined collection classes. 

The Honors CSE 390 course will be a special topics discussion section decided on by the instructor. 

English 182 focuses on teaching strategies and skills for effective writing and argument that are required of traditional academic genres, such as the research essay, while also expanding the skills for composing in multimodal genres that our increasingly digital and media saturated world demands.

Sequence covers the material of 124, 125, 126; 307, 308, 318. Third quarter of the first year of a two-year accelerated sequence. May not receive credit for both 126 and 136. For students with above average preparation, interest, and ability in mathematics.

Introduction to proofs and rigor; uniform convergence, Fourier series and partial differential equations, vector calculus, complex variables. Students who complete this sequence are not required to take 309, 324, 326, 327, 328, and 427. Third quarter of the second year of an accelerated two-year sequence; prepares students for senior-level mathematics courses.

Addresses same material as PHYS 123 in more depth and with additional topics such as current research and cross-disciplinary applications. For students with strong calculus preparation. Maximum 5 credits allowed for any combination of PHYS 116, PHYS 119, PHYS 123, and PHYS 143. 

Honors 100 Peer Educator Spring prep seminar.