Week 8 - ECHO Field Trip

The ECHO field trip was one of the better field trips we went on (in my opinion). ECHO is an organization that teaches people from poorer villages how to farm and yield crops efficiently from their land. It helps increase the amount of food available to villages and it teaches them techniques that can be passed on to future generations. When we first got there, we watched a documentary which explained the above information. After this short film was over, we were toured around the area. It was structured similar to a small farm with trees, plants, crops, animals, etc. These will be pictured in the next post.

Week 7 - Nature and Government

During Week 7, we began to discuss the controversy between the economy, governmental structure and their impacts on nature. Of course government/economy and nature can co-exist, but they must be monitored carefully. If nature is sacrificed too much, the economy will expand, but it could lead to devastating impacts in our future. This was a very interesting topic, and it was one that I thought applied to the outside world the most realistically. When it comes to this argument of economic impacts on nature, I feel that for the advancement of humans some nature will have to be sacrificed. However, some of it is completely unnecessary. Many products and knockoffs of other products are just wasted in the economy, not being bought and increasing the waste generated.

Music and Nature

Recently I was listening to a song called Kingdom of Loss by Pain of Salvation which touches on the pointlessness of certain aspects of urban society. It got me thinking about how much we waste as a society. For example, the song quotes "Could someone please just tell me what happened? I mean, first we paid for fast-food that will make us all fat and tired. So then we pay for elevators, so we won't have to climb the 3 stairs up to our apartments. Then we buy freaking stairmaster machines so we can burn away while watching someone make real food on TV. Now if that doesn't make us winners, I don't know what will." Urban society wastes more resources than we know for very pointless reasons. This pointless waste is the cause of many landfills everywhere, which could have been preserved. Although we do recycle also, recycling is pointless since most of it just get trashed anyways due to the negligence of people recycling the wrong goods. It is things like this that make me worry about not only my future, but also the future of generations ahead of me.

Week 5 - Gifts of Nature by Richard Louv

In week 5, we discussed the article "Gifts of Nature" by Richard Louv. In this article Louv expressed his naturalistic views pertaining to how others should view nature as a child views the world: in awe and wonder. Yes, children see the world like this because they are smaller and less-informed of the world, experiencing things for the first time. Realistically, however, not everyone is going to see the same thing the same way as everyone else. What one person views in awe, one person may not care for. This can be related to the saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure". There may be some aspects in nature that I will be in awe over, such as the view off of a mountaintop. But I will probably not stare in wonder over a tree or bush. I find myself much more in awe of a subway transit system or the view off of the Sears Tower.

Week 4 - Sense of Place (continued)

The second "sense of place" I exhibit is a bit more biophobic than the previous one. The second sense of place I exhibit is through my computer. Although this doesn't really to pertain to the stereotypical view "nature" at all, it is a place where I can either isolate myself within the vast information of the internet, listen to music without any disturbance, or interact with other people via messaging or video games. If I have never been to a particular place before, I can observe high definition pictures of that place or even watch videos of other people doing it. Although it is not the first-person approach, in today's society traveling is not always an option. This is the next best alternative in my opinion. Deciding which of my two "sense of places" is the more realistic one is up to other ecologists to determine, but I believe the balance between nature and technology is key to my sense of place.

Week 4 - Sense of Place

In week 4, we had our first class in the actual classroom (not including the first day of class). In this class session we discussed the meaning of the term "sense of place". Sense of place is defined by different ecologists in different ways. The way I see it is that it is a love or a reverence for a particular aspect of nature. This aspect of nature can exist in everything from swamplands of the Everglades, to a particular tree in your backyard, to even a place within an urban setting (such as listening to an mp3 player or using a computer, surprisingly enough). I did much thinking and I came to the conclusion that I have a sense of place in both rural and urban settings.

My first is the environment of the northwestern states (such as Illinois). I am originally from Chicago, Illinois , now presently living in Florida. Although people may not find the experiencing the change of seasons that remarkable, it is not present in Florida. Seeing the leaves fall off of the trees in autumn and snow fall in winter is a feat that one can only see with their own eyes. However, I am not particularly fond of the winters up north. My optimal times of the year for this climate are late spring through early autumn. I had fond memories of this growing up in the suburbs of Chicago and I go back every summer.

Week 3 - Matanzas Pass Preserve Field Trip (Pictures)