Blog Entry #6

  

As a child I had a very fortune experience with nature. I could say almost that I had an experience like someone from an older generation. At first I lived in a somewhat gated community but there was still a good amount of land in the backyard where I could play and come up with pretend adventures that my sister and I would go on. Then when I got to middle school I moved to an area where everyone lives on a couple of acres of land. This is where nature came into play a lot. I would be outdoors every single day after school and play with my next door neighbors until the street light came on. Then on the weekends I would be outside playing all day long. Whether it was swinging on the swing set or playing hide and go seek in the yard. Nature was my playing ground.

I do not know what type of person I would be if I was not outdoors and not in sync with nature. My life as a child was for the most part outdoors and it was very rare if I spent time indoors unless I was playing a board game or it was night time and I watched television before I went to bed. I guess I was very blessed to have parents who wanted their children to be outdoors and enjoy what nature has to give to them. I was also fortunate to have a sibling and next door neighbors that were interested in being outdoors as well. It is nice to look back at the days when I was a kid who played in the yard until the sun went down and even sometimes played when it was pitch black outside because the thought of danger lurking around was even more exciting.

Blog Entry #5

ECHO I would certainly say was a unique and knowledge filled field trip. Our tour guide definitely had a knack for people who agreed or said “yes” to what he was telling us. Every part or mostly every section of ECHO’s land was edible. Some of the other plants could be used for other necessities as well such as the Neem tree. The Neem tree is traditionally called the “toothbrush tree”. Neem bark helps to brighten teeth and maintain good oral health as well as provide aid for skin, nails, and hair. We also learned about ways to filter water by using the moringa seeds. Just one moringa seed filters bacteria out one water bottle, all you have to do in put the seed in a plastic water bottle (do not use glass) and let it sit under the sun to filter through and the bacteria will clump together.  Moringa has a lot of nutritional benefits; it has a significant source of beta carotene, Vitamin C, protein, iron, and potassium.

      There was so much to learn about living a sustainable life, we learned about using blessing or “poopies” from animals and other green manures to fertilize the land. Something interesting that I learned is that the banana plant is technically considered an herb. The banana plant does not have a wooden trunk and grows back from scratch over and over again at the end of the season. We also learned techniques on how to build water pumps that could be efficient for different cultures. All you really need is a PVC pipe which comes in handy a lot.  There was so much information and details that went into this field trip that really was truly amazing.  Even if you do not have land, there is a way to garden such as urban gardening. There are many ways you can get out there and live a sustainable life, you just need to ask questions and do research. 

Blog Entry #4

FGCU Food Forest, Who knew?

            One of the best field trips so far in the university colloquium course was the Florida Gulf Coast University food forest. We learned so much about growing vegetables, fruit, and other native and non-native plants. The FGCU food forest was created by students to show them how to live a sustainable life as well as learning where food comes from and how long it takes for food to grow. The food forest was so impressive, they were growing all sorts of vegetables from carrots, eggplants, green peppers to radishes.

            I never knew that you could use natural pesticides such as onions and grits to get rid of ants and other unwanted guests. Knowing that you can have fresh vegetables and fruit without harsh pesticides that are not good for you and the environment is pretty neat. The food forest really opened my eyes and made me care for the environment a lot more. I’m actually really interested in growing my own vegetables and fruit trees, it would be nice to look in the backyard and see all my hard work bloom.

            Being in the university colloquium course, we read stories all the time about how to live a sustainable life. But for the first time I got to experience what it actually looks like to be living a sustainable life. Kelly Walsh who is one of the directors of the food forest was really passionate about growing food and she often makes meals from the food forest and from her home since she grows food there. She made star-fruit salsa the other day with her own star-fruit and even made tasty sandwiches with the different types of lettuce growing in the forest. I never really knew how influential one visit could make on a person to change their mind about sustainability.

Blog Entry #3

Hot, Flat, and Crowded was such an interesting read, I think my favorite chapter out of all of chapters two, three, four, and five was definitely chapter five. Especially the section called “Let us Pray”, what I found most astonishing about this section was that in Australia there was a drought called the “Big Dry” that began roughly in 2000 and ended near 2007. When I read this section, I found this completely shocking because children who were six and seven years old had never remembered playing in the rain before. I cannot imagine being at that age and never seeing rain in my life so far. The sad thing about that whole situation is that these incidents such as the ‘Big Drought” can happen at anytime and anywhere because of drastic climate changes.

            Another interesting part in this book was in chapter three called Our Carbon Copies (Or, Too Many Americans) and an interesting concept of this chapter was called cradle to cradle. A way to think about natural resources and how to take care of our environment was in a book called Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. I like that this concept was trying to show that the environment can get better if we do something about these problems instead of going straight to another concept called cradle to grave. We just need to realize that it is not too late to make a change for our environment.

            Hot, Flat, and Crowded was really an eye opener on how much we have done to this fragile planet but it also gave us an insight on what we need to start right now and this minute to turn this situation around. As I got to the last sentence of the chapters that I read, this quote really stood out to me, it said “every day you look in the mirror now, you’re seeing an endangered species.” It is already enough that the river dolphin is extinct and that many other humans are making other animals extinct. If we think about all of these problems, we are basically doing the same thing and making ourselves extinct because we are ruining our environment and not making it a sustainable environment that we can live in. So everyday now that I am living on this planet, I need to find a way to make it sustainable.

Blog Entry #2

When the professor asked us to view the Audubon website before we went on the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary field trip; the first part of the website that interested me was the pictures of the boardwalk and the birds. Reading about the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, they are known for creating an environment where birds can live in and other animals can hibernate. When we arrived at Audubon, I found it very interesting on how they have a plan on restoring the water system to help with the everglades.

Before we started our nature tour, the part of the field trip that I remembered the most was a bulletin board that had pictures of what animals you could encounter at the sanctuary and seeing those pictures made me smile. The most fascinating part about the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary to me was the different areas that you walked through on the boardwalk and how fast the areas changed. One moment you are in a swamp with palmettos and cypress trees then all of a sudden you are in a grassy area with no trees. The areas drastically changed just by a dip in the boardwalk that we didn’t even feel or notice.

 Another park of the sanctuary that I enjoyed was spotting the birds in different spots. The woodpeckers were at the very top part of trees and then there were larger birds such as egrets in the swamp. We also saw an alligator that was relaxing above the swamp near a bed of rocks. It was nice to see so many animals all in a couple of hours. It was definitely difficult to end the field trip and get back on the bus.  

Blog Entry #1

The big question was brought up during the first day of class. Which was what do you think colloquium is and what have you heard about colloquium? We were given a note-card to write down all our thoughts and feelings about what we have heard and think we know about colloquium. The professor told us that we can write down anything we want and to tell the truth because we can select what we want to share with the class and what we want to keep to ourselves. The first thought that came to my mind was “outside field trips”. The first time I set foot onto FGCU and heard about the university colloquium, every one said that you go on outside field trips which are very different to other classes offered at FGCU.

            The second thought that came to my mind was that colloquium is for learning about the environment and how to take care of it, as well as finding areas locally in Fort Myers that focus on environmental issues. Another topic that pops up into my mind about colloquium and that everyone would agree on is that this class is a service learning course and it is a FGCU requirement that fulfills service learning along with a Gordon rule requirement. The most common statement that I heard about colloquium and that I had to include on my note card is “colloquium is a course that everyone has to take some time or later in your junior year”. I think that was my favorite idea that I put on my note card. 

            Later on in the class we were given a presentation on why it is important to preserve the environment and why this class can be useful for us in the future. Overall the big question in the end was simple and the answer was a sustainable future. What we can do on our part to help the environment and how we can be informed about it.