July 9

This day was our last day of class, our last field trip, course evaulation, and paper 4 was due. This paper was probably my least favorite out of them because I felt it was very choppy and not really sure how I wanted to express myslef.

I really enjoyed this class a lot. I appreciatee everything Dr. Morris has taught and explained to us. THis open my eyes to a lot of knew things and how I can make a difference. This class has a bad rep, but I will pass the word to take Dr. Morris for Colloquium. This class wasnt bad at all, but probably one of the best class I have taken so far at FGCU. I appreciate eveything and I will carry all this knowledge with me for the rest of my life.

Thanks
David Royster

History

The downtown Ft. Myers field trip displayed much history. I never knew that we had a farmers market where many people sold local and organically grown crops. I never knew the Caloosahatchee Indians lived here in Ft. Myers. Or about FT. Myers was a party city at one point and everyone went to the Pleasure Pier. Or about the Garden of Palms that has many different species of palm trees from all over the world. Or that Fort Myers got his name form a particular general whose last name was Myers. And this fort was protected by African American soldiers who were apart of the Union and not the Confederate. The Confederate could never take over the fort. And that Fort Myers is one the most segregated cities in the US. There so much history within Ft. Myers that i never knew about, but now I know.

Downtown Fort Myers

This field trip was to display our environment as human beings. We have distorted the natural environment since, but we must live as well. I never thought about our environment as natural. We have the technology and knowledge to do certain things, why not do them. We live on Earth too, so we must do what we have to to survive and coexist. This is something I have never considered, but it all makes since. We can't live on Earth for the Earth, but for ourselves so that we can survive. We must adapt to changes to the planet and the planet must adapt to us. Some of our methods may be erratic, but we our trying to fix the problems we have created.

Sanibel Flats

Sanibel Flats was the book I chose to read for our last paper. This is actually a good book, but it starts off really slow. It takes a while to get interesting, but the process is necessary to provide details and insight. I'm not one to really read books, so this is different for me. Reading about Doc, his environment, his life, and saving his best friends little boy is all very interesting. White is a very amazing story teller, and now will look up other books he was written and/or other mystery books.

FGCU Solar Panels

FGCU wants to build a sustainable environment, by building 2 million watts of solar panels. This would provide 2 megawatts a day, saving 22 million dollars over a 30 year span. These panels would be tracking sun from east to west and provide 27 percent more energy than your typical solar system. FGCU is also considering building solar panels on top of the parking garage and above Alico Arena. FGCU wouldn't be the first university to building a solar system, the University of Arizona also has a 2 million watt system.

Babcock Ranch

This city is starting to be built this year and it is north of Fort Myers, in Charlotte county. It is 17,000 of acres and surrounded by 73,000 acres of Babcock ranch preserve. This is a 100% solar power city, with a low amount of energy coming from wind power. This system would provide 75 megawatts of energy, sustainable water management and conservation, street lamps designed to reduce light pollution, electric car chargers, a smart grid system, green roofs to minimize energy requirement in buildings, and 20,000 jobs. I think this is an incredible task, taking place and I would love to visit this city when it is finish. This is a good step in the right direction and possibly change what our future will look like in other cities.

Enduring an Energy Future

Well in the presentation I spoke about the quote on page 148. It was talking about the government get tax revenues and subsidies to utilities for there use of conventional fossil fuel and coal uses. I would preferred to see them give those to the companies in an effort to switch to renewable energy. Giving them incentives for things that the planet would benefit, rather than giving them incentives so that the planet can continue to suffer. Also we set the an example to the rest of the world with this change, because everyone wants be like the US. Since many countries are just going through there industrial revolution, they can adopt renewable energy as well.

Presentation

I'm not high on presentations because I get so nervous. I'm very shy, so when I go up in front of a group I get really nervous and I tend to talk really fast. My words get bunched and mumbling, it all seems so disastrous. I would prefer not to do presentations, but I know I need to work on that aspect since I am a business major. I really do not think there is any profession where you are not speaking in front of a group of people. And this was subject I was interested in and so I would have hoped for a better performance. I don't even think we made the fifteen minute mark.

Camp Caloosa

Everything Mike told me interested me, this is a topic that catches my eye. I like learning about the environment and what everything means and the effects. I never realized that we had so many invasive species plants that have destroy much of Florida. Such as the melaleuca tree which have grown all over Florida has decrease of our naive trees, like the pines. They take up all the resources and around them and inevitably destroy the trees around them. And I already knew wild fires were natural and a good thing for the environment, but I didn't know why. Well now I know, it destroy all the trees around and to grow new, young trees around. Trees in Florida are adaptive to fire, so it really isn't harming them.

Service Learning #3

This was the last day of the field trips to Camp Caloosa, and it was the first and last time I would do something I did. Start a burn of a couple acres, that was pretty cool. I didn't get to walk through the brush like the professionals, but I still was able to light some of it on fire. It blazing when the fire picked up, especially with wearing those fire resistant jackets and pants. It was a unique activity that I probably will never do again, but the whole experience at Camp Caloosa interested me.

Service Learning #2

The second week of the service learning field trips and I showed up. The day was really cloudy and very early. I thought it was going to rain, but it never did. Very humid and hot especially with wearing pants outside. Well what Mike had us do would be good to get rid of anger and aggression. We chopped down lots of invasive trees after avoiding all the poison ivy. It was fun and I enjoyed everything we did. Even if we didn't get to play with fire....maybe next time.

Service Learning #1

Well I missed the first week of Camp Caloosa because I had a family emergency. My step-father has been in the hospital since Easter and I wanted the opportunity to go visit. I did and he is doing much better. He is still fighting and that's all we can hope and pray for. Well I hope I didn't miss too much in the first week.

Ecological Footprint

Well, learning about the ecological footprint made me think a bit. I never knew how much goes into many of the things we buy. I never thought about it the way the footprint shows us. How much resources, and land mainly, that is put into many of the gadgets. The land that is used to build the product, the land that is used to get the fossil fuels to ship the merchandise, the land the vehicle travels on, the land the resources came from to make the product, and I am sure there is more being used in the process. That is a lot of land just for one product, and there are billions of products available today. So we are using a lot of the earth already, will we continue to consume at high rates or change our ways.

Lover's Key Fieldtrip

This field trip was hot and humid. It was extremely high tide, with not much beach to walk on. In the distanceyou could see dolphin come up for air. Not much wildlife either besides a few birds. We learn about mangroves and what good they provide. I've been to Lover's key before several times, but never to the state park. I never knew that there was a state park.

Paper 2

This piece was something I enjoyed because I understood and enjoyed the reading piece. I thought it would be a little more difficult to write 5+ pages, but I managed to do so. I felt I had good information and resources to build off, but thought I might become repetitive if I began to come up short. But after rereading it several times it sounded good and it flowed smoothly. I have a tendency to go off topic, but didn't do that either. With me interested in the reading I was able to put together a solid paper.

Greed

Greed is our worse enemy. We have no other enemy's but that. We desire to have it all and the only what to get that is by money. Money has ultimately ruined our lives because contractors will stop at nothing to earn millions. If there weren't rules and regulations then these contractors would have built on everything if we let them. And farmers do not want to change there methods with gaining some kind of incentives. They will continue to ruin the top soil because its a cheap method and they would be bring in the most income, not worrying about what damage they are causing.

Aldo Leopold

Everything in Leopolds reading was something I agreed with or some what did to an extent. We have done so much altering to this planet and we are finally realizing it now. What's amazing about his writng is that he wrote this about seventy years ago and we can still relate to it now. And I am sure matters are much worse now than they were seventy years ago. It goes to show you that we are realizing past mistakes becasuse we can take a simple reading like Leopolds piece and relate it to our lives today.

Different Surfaces

ECHO demonstrated different surfaces such as, tropical highlands, urban rooftops, tropical monsoon, tropical rain forest, semi-arid tropics, and hot humid lowlands. Each facing there different obstacles to grow crops that can sustain life. Tropical highlands face mountainous conditions and have lots of soil runoff. While rain forest face lots of rain which lead to poor soil. Urban rooftops grow on rooftops from trash like tires, carpet, and cans. Tropical monsoon have moderate rain and sometimes have long drought periods. Semi-arid tropics are mainly dry with a three month rainy season. Hot humid lowlands have a long rainy season and typically crops need to be grown on hill areas.

Poverty

There are 1.4 billion lives below the poverty line and 963 million are hungry everyday. These are amazing statistics. Both of those figures are more than three times the population of the United States. Not all the people below the poverty line and who grow hungry everyday, live in the United States, but there are still some who reside in the US. One of the most wealth countries, still has people who do not receive meals on a daily basis and do not have a roof over there head. It may be by personal choice,but I'm sure not all and only if we could those in our own backyard, then proceed outside the country we could make a difference.

ECHO Fieldtrip

The field trip to Echo taught me a lot of different things. That we can plant on many different surfaces, such as rooftops. I also liked what was being done at ECHO. They were teaching other countries how to farm sustainably. Meaning they weren't just giving them food that would last them a day, but they were teaching them how to farm, which would last a lifetime. I think that shows patience and comment from ECHO to due such a thing.

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary Part 2

Well this field trip was very informative and repetitive. Some the information like learning about the different surfaces(pine flat woods, wet prairies, cypress swamp) are things I learned in Southwest Florida Biology. Also, I had some previous knowledge on how the plant species adapt to their surroundings. I thought what was cool is how we saw all the different ecosystems within a mile and half of each other. And also learning about lycon and that it means we breathing in clean air. Also, how they make man made fires to simulate a wild fire. Overall I thought it was pretty good field trip even though we didn't see any wildlife.

The Living Machine

Our first stop was at the bathrooms and once we were done we found out some interesting stuff. The Living Machine is when use the bathroom and the waste or water goes into a tank were living organism break down the waste into clean water once again. It goes through many stages of breaking down before the water is actually pure. It is like recycling water we use over and over again. The only thing humans add to the water is chlorine, due to regulations but the chlorine is taken out once it is released back into the living machine. This is only one of many living machines, there is one in Scotland, London, California, and many throughout the states.

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

May 21, 2009 is when we headed off on our first fild trip. This came at a surprise as well because it was only the second week of classes for us. Be were ready bright and early at lot #7. It was about a thirty minute bus ride to Corkscrew Swamp ride. When we finally got off it was a little muggy and the sun was shining high. We weren't the only class at the site, but we finally set off wee broke in two groups. The walk wasn't bad due to shade from the cypress. This ws enjoyable first field trip.

Paper One

That first paper came as surprise because we have a week to prepare and write a final document. The things I read about John Dewey and his ideas about progressive education and experience, was something I can agree with to an extent. I believe the past is a major part of what happens in the present and the future. And believe only good experience is something you can grow from into the future. Also the topic of we are growing slower to mature; is something I have read last semester by Harold Bloom. "Dumbing Down America" was meant to explain that things we read like JK Rowlings, Stephen King, and others do not write real literature. So becoming stupid with the nonsense we read. I had a lot of points discussed throughout my paper but not sure if they can be receive to the audience.

First Day

Well my first day of class I didn't know what to expect. This is a required class, so this wasn't something I would have picked on my own. I didn't know what colloquium meant until the day I went to class. Now that I know it means discussion, somethings make since now. Since we are a environmental school, it makes since to discuss about things to sustain our environment. It also make since to discuss things that are a major topic in our society today, like the environment, economics, and politics. Now that I understand what is meant by colloquium and that I have a better understanding of is expected from me as a student, I expect gain something from this class.