Class Reflection

In the beginning of the summer I was not looking forward to taking Colloquium because all I had ever heard was it was a bunch of busy work and the fields trips were boring. The only reason I had signed up for this course was because we had to take this course to graduate from FGCU but was I wrong. The more I went to class the more I enjoyed it and learned about the area I reside and how to be more sustainable. Yes, being sustainable probably will not affect us in our lifetime but it does matter for our future generations and there are little things you can do to make a big difference. Just by recycling and using energy efficient appliances you can make a big difference while you save money and the earth we live on. Colloquium was more than just a class for tree huggers and naturalist it was a very useful class that I a Criminal Justice Major even got something out of.

Group Projects

For our group projects we were all assigned a chapter from Plan B 4.0. The groups were randomly assigned and consisted of 2 – 3 people per group. It was a very interesting class learning more and more about the points brought up throughout Plan B from everyone’s own perspective in the class. We learned about the different ways we can stay sustainable throughout our society. There are new light bulbs that are more energy efficient; there are new energy efficient appliances, and smart cars. Riding your bikes is also more sustainable and saves you more money than it would if you drove your cars through the inner city. Also you can fit 6 times as many bikes on the road then you can cars. Some groups also talked about wind turbines and solar panels, which seem like a great way to get energy for a lot cheaper. The world is evolving around becoming more sustainable every day we just need to try and keep up with it.

Service Learning

For our service-learning project our class had to help out ECHO farm. We all got assigned 2 plants between 2 people. We then had to work in a group to figure out how we were going to present the plants in a short video and find a link with more facts about the plants. My partner and I were given the task of looking of up the Neem tree and the Mulberry tree. We find information online than headed down to ECHO to try and find our plants in their public nursery. After finding the plants we took pictures of them there and then went back home. From home we searched for more pictures of the trees online and put them into a video maker document.  Then we did our voice over’s for both plants. Now our project was almost done but we still had to go and make 4 QR codes. This was interesting since I had never made a QR code before. But all in all our project was done and it wasn’t to hard to do, plus we got to help out a great organization. 

Downtown Fort Myers

Another field trip we went on was down town Fort Myers.  I have never really been to downtown fort Myers before so I thought it was very interesting. We started off by going down to see the farmers market that was set up under the bridge. Then we walked down by the water to the statue of Thomas Edison and learned a little about his significance to SW Florida. Then we learned the story of how Fort Myers got the docks on the water when they were not meant to be built here but in Sarasota. After that we walked a little further down and saw the Palm tree garden. Even living in Florida my whole I have never seen so many different Palm trees.  Although the most interesting part of the field trip for me was the mural made out of tiles. It was large and beautiful and depicted all of Fort Myers history so clearly. 

Lovers Key Field Trip

We went to visit Lovers Key State Park this Thursday morning for class. I have been to the park before but only to go fishing. I was very interested in learning why it meant so much to my community besides for fishing. When we got there we walked down the docks and stopped to talk about the mangroves. There are three different types of mangroves native to Southwest Florida. They are the Black, White, and Red mangrove trees. Mangroves do a lot for the environment around them that I did not even know.  They provide an estuary environment for the fish to grow and prosper. They also provide shelter to many fish when they are smaller so bigger fish cannot eat them. Mangroves also provide a wind barrier and stop erosion from happening. After our talk about the Mangroves we went out to the ocean and got to enjoy the nature around us for a little while, overall I’d say it was a successful trip.

Class of Video

During our third class period we watched many different videos. We were supposed to right down on each section three different parts.

1 something new we learned
2 something we did not believe
3 something relevant to South West Florida

We watched many segments on different areas of the world. We learned that ecosystem are life support systems and that we can not live without them. The need to save natural resources is a really big deal. We all need to save our resources for the future and our future generations so that they can prosper too. We need to care more about the future and not just our selves right now.

Ecological footprints

During our class period we learned about ecological footprints. What we learned about ecological footprints was very interesting. In class we had one of our classmates volunteer and we calculated his ecological footprint. If the world as a whole had the same ecological footprint as we in America that there would not be enough earth to sustain all the people living. The scary thing is that India and China are growing really fast and want to be as advanced as us in America. If China and India's ecological footprint gets as high as the average American there will be a huge problem for the world. One way or another we as Americans need to start depleting our ecological footprint.

Echo

Our third field trip we visited echo farms. Echo was like a huge food forest that we have on our own campus. Through echo we saw how different climates and environments can sustain farms. In different climates there was different foods that would prosper there and different ways to plant and sustain them. Echo teaches people from third world countries how to efficiently farm so that they can put food on the table for there family and eventually other people in there tribe or village. They had ways to purify water and make gas for cooking that I found very interesting as well. While we were there we also saw what our service learning project was gonna be.

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

On the second day of class we met up on campus to take busses to go to corkscrew swamp sanctuary. On this field trip we learned about the three different parts of the swamp. We also saw various animals on our long walk on the board walk. I saw deer, woodpeckers, alligators, owls, many insects and much more. In the front we learned about the living machine, which was a system that purifies water through plants, goes down a slight slant and into canisters. At the end all that is needed a little chlorine and it was up to code in Florida for healthy drinking water. This was really cool I did not know that it was possible.

Food Forest

During the first class period we visited the Food Forest on FGCU's Campus.  We learned many different things about the food forest that were very interesting. First off I did not know that we had a food forest on campus until our first class. Other things I liked where how we were able to pick the plants and fruits and eat them right off the tree. The design of the food forest was very in depth with bushes to break the wind and the different elevations used for certain plants. Then after the food forest we went on a walk through the campus' nature trails. It was nice to see how the environment around us so close on campus could be so relaxing.