Field Trip - Freshwater Ecosystem: Everglades National Park

My family and I took a trip to the Everglades National Park Visitor Center in Homestead, Florida. It was a cloudy day, the humidity was high, and the smell of rain was in the atmosphere. When we first arrived, we walked inside the visitor center reading all about the history of the Everglades national Park, the ecosystems, animals, and the current threats of the environment. We than took a short 30 minute tour with one of the volunteer employees that showed us around and pointed out several popular species throughout the Everglades. While we traveled through the environment there were several moments where it was completely silent and we all listened to the nature. I can speak on behalf of my family when I say that it was a very relaxing, enjoyable, and informational experience. After the tour we sat at one of the picnic tables that were on a balcony overlooking the spectacular view and ate lunch. Overall, the field trip to the Everglades National Park Visitor Center was a wonderful and memorable time.

Reading #11 - Endgame

Reading the article Endgame, by Michael Grunwald, was an interesting battle to ultimately conserve the Everglades. Whenever there is talk about the environment and conserving it's usually associated with negativity and a loss of hope. It was nice to read an environmental article with a happy ending. Although the job of conserving and preserving is never a job completed, the battle during Clinton's election for the "A Time to Act" campaign was a prevailing win for Everglades. Although it was hard to keep up with the variety of Senators and activists throughout the reading, there was one man stood out to me the most, Senator Smith. His reputation as a grueling Republican did not suffice with the environmentalist and without giving him a chance they wrote him off and expected nothing from him but disaster. He proved them all wrong and devoted his time and efforts to preserve the Everglades. The best quote that Senator Smith stated was "part of being a conservative is to conserve." All in all, I enjoyed the read about the politics of conserving and how people are so passionate about making sure that our environment stays intact.        

    

Reading #10 - Vandana Shiva

Reading the article about Vandana Shiva in the University Colloquium and watching the youtube video of her speaking was very overwhelming. She clearly presents herself as an activist for organic agriculture. Although there is an abundant amount of information that she presented, I can't decide whether I fully agree with her proposal that biodiversity is the ultimate resource that keeps a health food production alive. Shiva is very set that globalization is one of the main reasons that biodiversity is deteriorating, but I believe that globalization had made not only the United States but several other nations prosper with their imports, exports, and international affairs. Additionally, she comes from a very bias stand point because she continually insults the United States and Europe, but highly praises her home of India.
Although there was much that I didn't agree with, there were a few statements that Shiva stated in which I had the same opinion. The one part of the youtube videa that intrigued me was when Shiva said that at a convention she attended there were a group of companies that had a common goal to merge into five main companies to create a monopoly in the food industry worldwide. When she addressed this statement, unfortunately I wasn't baffled because I know that a monopoly has been created in the meat industry in the United States, but I certainly didnt' think this could carry on onto an international level.

Reading #9 - A Tale of Two Farms

I enjoyed reading A Tale of Two Farms by Jared Diamond because of his approach on presenting information about the evolution of cities. Diamond explains several reasons why a city, like the Gardar farm, can collapse and deteriorate while a neighbor farm land prospers and grows, like the Huls Farm. The five point frame work explains why certain cities dissolve and they are: environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trade partners, and the society's responses to its environment. I liked how Diamond openly admitted to leaning about how much more there is to the destruction of a city other than environmental causes. Reading about each one of the five points was enlightening and although it is a tragedy to think that it is possible that any city can be destroyed, he seems to present his opinion from an optimistic point of view.
The most interesting part of the reading was on page 32 when Diamond presents both sides of an environmental opinion. There are the "environmentalists" who urge the importance of the environment and insist that the government takes action to achieve a sustainable lifestyle. According to the "environmentalist" economic and population growth cannot be achieved sustainability without a prosperous environment. The opposite of the "environmentalists" are the "non-environmentalists" who think the importance of the environment is over exaggerated and that a nation can grow without the help of the environment. After reading this section, I started to think where I stood on the political environmental spectrum. Before college I really could care less about the environment and what happened to all the animals. Now, I look back and think how ignorant I was to think that humans can do things all by themselves. Nature plays a large role in everyone's life regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, age, or color. I'm glad that I chose FGCU as my college and even though sometimes I think one person isn't going to make a difference, I'm constantly reminded of our ecological footprint and what we leave behind.        

Reading #6 - Moving Ecoagriculture into the Mainstream

Chapter 2 helped me understand the concept and importance of ecoagriculture. Until now, I never knew that it was a way for agriculture, rural development and managing the ecosystem to balance each other out and work together. I enjoyed reading about agroecological farming and the different types, such as organic agriculture, agroforestry, conservation agriculture, and evergreen agriculture. It was interesting to understand the flow of the environment and how important each role contributes.

Reading #5 - Charting a New Path to Eliminating Hunger

After reading chapter 1 in State of the World, I thought about how much food I waste from a day to day basis. For example, after dinner I throw all of my left-over's down the drain or in the trash. Also, I thought about food processing in America and the overall quality. It made me think how fortunate I am to be able to live in a country with plenty of food and where starvation and hunger is not an issue. I've always known that Africa was a poor country that doesn't have many resources, but I never realized why. Chapter 1 explained to me why their methods of crop growing are failing and that many people need to be educated about proper farming techniques. Personally, I think I can help out by buying fruits and vegetables at a local farmers market. This chapter was very eye opening and I am excited to read more.

Reading #4- Summary

                I thoroughly enjoyed all of the reading and video's on interactive, environmental learning. Coming from a fairly large family with four children, who are all 1 year apart, and two loving parents, there seizes to be any form of peace inside the house. Both my brothers are prescribed with ADHD and both my sister and my mom are prescribed with ADD, so sometimes my house can feel like God is pushing the fast-forward button on a dramatic reality TV show.  Despite the household craziness, after reading and watching the information, I began to think back to my childhood, how it's affected me today and how privileged I am. While my dad was at work, my mom would pack a cooler and plan a day trip to a nature reserve, the beach, a park, or anything that hand enough space for four children to run around outside. Although the majority of my family is prescribed with some sort of "disorder" my parents never believed medicine would fix the problem. Yes, there was several behavior issues along the way, but I enjoyed seeing my family express their creativity instead in sitting for hours focusing so intensely on their homework due to Ritalin. My mom was able to detect our higher level of concentration and better performance in school if we were able to play outside.
                Out of all the videos, I enjoyed Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity the most. He had a funny sense of humor and spoke the truth about our school system not only in America, but also on a global scale. It hurts me to think that someone  will spend their entire life searching for a passion because it was overlook as a young child and known as "misbehaving". Ken Robinson and John Dewey's perspectives are very inspiring as well as educational. Because I am an education major, I have previously been introduced to John Dewey and this theories.  He emphasized the importance of a strong community and how each person plays an important role because of their natural strengths. Additionally, he proposed that working with and in an environmental setting can only be beneficial.
                I am very happy that this issue was addressed in this course because I think it is important for not just education majors to understand that the environment can be used for much more than a pretty picture. As the book University Colloquium: A Sustainable Future states that the environment is a simple solution to better concentration and overall health. All of the information has given me a different perspective. Instead of looking at a child who has a "disorder" and feeling sorry for them, I am going to think that they have some sort of creativity and charm about them that no one else possess. I hope to keep and practice this information as I travel inside the classroom and teach in the future.