Last Class

This morning was the final class of the summer C semester.  Because of the syllabus, I expected to read my final essay and listen to everyone else's.  Luckily, we did not do that.  Instead, we watched everyone's videos for their service learning projects.  Most of them were really good.  I know my teammate and I did well, but I was surprised at how good a lot of my classmates were at editing their videos.  I am glad that the university makes this class mandatory.  I earned 10 service learning hours, got to go to some cool places and I actually feel like I learned a lot about the area.  I will definitely encourage my younger friends to try and enjoy it when they take it, because it's no where near as pain-staking as everyone makes it out to be.

Downtown Ft. Myers

The field trip to downtown Fort Myers was my favorite.  We were able to check out the farmers market that they have near the yacht area on Thursdays.  I was actually hoping to get some food from one of the food trucks but, no luck there.  They weren't open when we went through the first time and we didn't have time on the way to the bus.  I really didn't know that Fort Myers has such an interesting past involving the Caloosa people, Cattle drives and the civil war.  Learning about the city's history is what made it my favorite trip of the class.

Service Learning at ECHO

    My team's service learning project was to find internet info and create informational videos for "sweet Charlie" strawberries and Okinawa spinach.  This information would then be linked to QR codes and placed on placards in front of the plants at ECHO so visitors who are seeking information on the plants could use their smart phones to read the QR codes and get the info.  It was a fun project to participate in.

Natural living course at FGCU

     While we were at ECHO Farms, Dr. Morris told us about post-grad students who are interns at ECHO and live there for a year.  While they live there, they maintain their own gardens and have to grow their own food to sustain themselves.  That sounds pretty interesting but, I'm not sure that I would want to do it.  From what I've heard, the interns are permitted to eat at a restaurant once every couple of weeks or so.  I wonder if many of them actually do that or if they prefer to eat what they've worked hard to grow and maintain. 

Practical application to all fields of study

  After the Lover's Key trip, I started to think more and more about how learning the ins and outs of the local environment would apply to my career in law enforcement.  At first, I really didn't think that it did but, after some time I remembered that in the Marines I was taught to know and understand my environment fully before executing a plan of action.  While I do find the material in the class interesting, at the very least I am now much more aware of my natural surroundings.

#5- Lover's Key State Park

Our third field trip was to Lover's Key State Park which is and estuary sandwiched between a beautiful gulf coast beach and the Estero Bay.  Upon arrival, we found a shady spot to go over the area with Dr. Morris for a few minutes and then we were dismissed to enjoy the beach for about two hours.  I was under the impression that we would only have about 15 minutes to check out the area after the class was done, so I was pretty happy with that.  A buddy and I walked the beach between the gazebo and the boardwalk that we came in on a couple times and had a hotdog at the food shack.  Also, I'm pretty sure I saved a mollusk's life.  I saw a pretty nice looking shell on the ground and picked it up only to find that it was still inhabited.  The slug-like creature inside wasn't really happy that he was being held so I tossed him back into the gulf.  All in all, it was a fun trip.  Going to school near a beach is pretty sweet.

#4

This class is very interesting.  I honestly would not have taken it just as an elective but, I am glad that it is required.  Everyone who comes through FGCU should know about the area that we live in during our time here.  I do feel that this class and the other environmental science classes that I've taken rank pretty highly when it comes to the amount of work, but it is necessary.  If you just bring a group of students out to a field trip and talk about the environment without having them reflect on what their experiences were like or how it ties into their lives, these things might never occur to them.  I know they probably wouldn't have occurred to me. 

#3 ECHO

The second field trip we went on was to a place called ECHO that teaches farmers, that live in slightly less than hospitable environments, how to make use of what they have in order to farm and provide for their families.  Not all of the training that goes on at ECHO is geared towards the 3rd world farmer but, it the volunteers there can show people, who live in the hunger-stricken areas of the world, how to survive.  Our guide showed us around the property but, he apparently left a few things out of the tour.  Dr. Morris had us covered though.  My favorite part of the trip was being able to actually eat some of the things that they were growing right from the tree.  They were mostly leaves, but it was pretty cool. 

#2-CSS

Our first field trip was to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.  I had been there once before, in my freshman year, for Environmental Bio of SW Florida but I still enjoyed it.  The first time I was there, the water level was a lot higher which I believe had something to do with the amount of animal scat on the board walk.  I guess black bears, Florida Panthers and Raccoons prefer to be dry when going to the bathroom.  On this trip, we saw quite a few birds and (more interestingly) a mother alligator with about 5-6 babies.  She had dug out a gator hole (which is a hole in the mud that catches water) so her kids could swim around.  I enjoyed my time at CSS and was thankful that I had been there before because I was able to answer a lot of our guides questions. 

#1

     Looking back on class #1, I should have started this blogging assignment earlier.  But, I haven't ever had a blog before (let alone read anyone else's) so I decided to put it off for a while.  In any case, the first class was very informative.  Dr. Morris clearly knows how he plans to teach Colloquium this summer and that is good news.  I like being in classes where the professor actually enjoys teaching the material.  There are a lot of assignments so it should be a challenging 10 weeks.