Conservation science is a dynamic discipline that provides an important foundation for undergraduate students entering agriculture and natural science fields. Yet this discipline has a reputation of trending toward a “doom and gloom” paradigm that risks either causing students to disengage from the material or even feed into a growing ecoanxiety that could be harmful for their learning and wellbeing. To combat this risk, I make intentional and sustained efforts to promote positivity and optimism when teaching this subject. I reflect here on my experiences with centering conservation optimism in my teaching of an undergraduate capstone course in Conservation Biology. I outline my approach to designing a core course assignment called “Success Stories”, in which students identify and pin examples of conservation wins on a map of the world housed in a collaborative Padlet. The collection grows with each year that I teach the course and is now filled with over 500 success stories and counting, including rich accounts of successes in animal reintroduction, habitat restoration, and community empowerment spanning all continents, numerous biomes, and diverse taxa. In each pin, students share a story that they have chosen on their own after a deep dive into the primary literature. They provide reflections on the evidence for success, the factors that have contributed to the win, and whether the same approach can be applied elsewhere in other contexts. At the end of the course, students revisit the map from a macro lens and look for global trends and broad lessons learned from cross-comparisons among the diverse wins curated by their classmates. In this way, students gain a sense of hope and inspiration for the possibilities of success as they conclude their undergraduate experience and prepare to embark on careers in agriculture and natural science fields.