Journal #9

My Food
3/25/2014

So, I have 0 experience growing my own food or even growing a plant. If i had to do it i would probably starve and die. But, i do respect all of the innovation and creativity involved at ECHO that they use to make there own food any recycle everything. I usually fat for jewish holidays and it is the biggest challenge. When i was younger my mom would never let me fast because i was such a picky eater. So now when i try to fast i starve forever and i can never do it fully. I would be able to only last about two days but after that i would stuff my face as fast as i could to just taste food it made me feel better. I get all of my food from a supermarket. Once in a blue moon ill go to a strawberry field and pick strawberries but thats on very rare occasions.

Journal #8

Urban vs. Campus

3/11/2014

So walking around downtown Fort Myers or walking throughout FGCU's campus trails? Which one did I like best, definitely downtown. For one it wasn't in calf deep murky water. Thats definitely not my cup of tea. Actually seeing what beauty we have all over our campus even in the middle of the woods was amazing and all of the history that I've never known about in downtown was so informational that its amazing how much history we have here that I've never know about. Even though i didn't like the campus trails doesn't mean i didn't get anything out if it. All students new and old should walk on a campus trail at least once. You never know what yowl will see or find but you will definitely become informed on what it right outside our backdoors and around our campus.

Journal #7

Sense of Place Interview
2/25/2014

So this journal timing was perfect. My grandparents actually came to visit me for the weekend and take me out to lunches and dinners and shopping. All the normal activities that grandparents love to do with there grandchildren. So I sat down with my grandma one day after lunch and asked her some questions. I think that it starts with where she was brought up. She was brought up in Long Island, NY but that's not where it ended. My grandparents one day decided to pick up and move to Boca Raton, FL and told the rest of the family that they better not be to far behind. So now my whole family (moms side) lives here in South Florida. So like myself my grandma loves being outdoors, she's not as much of a beach goer as I am but she loves going to the park or pool. But, she especially loves to sit outside on the porch with my aunt (her sister) and drink wine. She's really good at it too. In NY there wasn't any solar panels or gardens where she was growing up but where she moved to FL she can see the tremendous difference and how FL is growing all the time to become more green.

Journal #5

Your Neighborhood
2/11/2014

My sense of place! I have said it over and over I’ve known about my sense of place at a really young age. Outside in the Florida sun is where I love to be. It can be anywhere, at home or at the beach as long as I'm outside I don’t really complain. So when asked to walk around my neighborhood and observe my surroundings it was too difficult. I was already outside lounging in the driveway. Some things though that I saw other then the numerous amount of recycle bins in front of all of the houses because it was a recycle day. But I also saw that a lot of my neighbors have solar panels on the roofs of their homes. I thought that that was the best invention, especially for us Floridians. So I thought about where I loved to go in my neighborhood to just sit and relax and chill. So you wont believe me when I say I have a 100 ft. hill in my backyard but I go and sit on the top of it and relax. It’s my place to go to get away from the craziness going on in my house.

Journals 1-4

MY SENSE OF PLACE??

So far the big thing that has been in the back of my head is where is my sense of place. Through writing these Journals and being in class for this long so far I have found a greater knowledge of where my sense of place is. I feel it is definitely outside somewhere but haven't actually found a specific place yet. I don't know if there will even be a place but I feel like I am getting closer and closer with nature through this course. So I am looking forwards for the future and what it has to come!

Journal Entry #4

ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT
2/4/2014

During a 24hr day I consume so much. Not even from looking at my ecological footprint.  I know from self-doing how much I actually consume. Energy usage being a big one, I try to shut off my lights the best I can but I forget to all the time. In my house I am in charge of the electric bill so you think I would be more conservative to try not to pay so much but it’s extremely hard. Going from living at your parent’s house where they tell you to shut them off to just doing it on your own. It’s definitely a huge struggle for myself. I drive everywhere! I hate to be a passenger in most cars because I get nauseous and car sick a lot, but when I drive I’m fine so I volunteer all the time. Just driving from school and back and work and back builds up a huge fuel emission even if their only 5miles away. I do consume a lot of food in a day but I’m a growing boy. Just recently I have been trying to be greener in what I eat. Lots of fruits and vegetables but I do have meat and dairy a lot as well. I wake up with eggs or a bagel almost every morning and usually have some type of chicken for lunch with a salad. Dinner isn’t as bad, I am usually working so I don’t eat dinner often I usually just pick at snack. Water use is big. I shower at an average three times a day. I workout at least once a day and with that on top of school and work and just living in Florida (the sunshine state) I sweat a lot. So I shower a lot too. I realize that I need to try and keep lowering my eco footprint. When I took this test freshman year for one of my humanities classes I took up about 10 earths. Now I am at 5.9 earths a lot lower but I think I can keep getting it lower.

Ecological Footprint

Journal Entry #3

CONSERVATION 20/20
1/28/2014

Our trip to the Matanzas Pass Preserve started off rocky. With the bus driver not turning the air conditioning on and the loads of traffic on the way to the beach kind of put a damper on the trip right from the start. But, stepping off that bus and see that old cottage I knew I was in an interesting history lesson to say the least. I really enjoyed what Mrs. Hughes had to say. She was so cute but extremely insight full and passionate about the island that she has been living on for so many years. I learned a lot like that Matanza actually means massacre. I thought that was kind of weird at first. I also learned that the first bridge to get onto the island was built almost 100 years ago. It was redone a bunch of time but the first one was built in 1921.
So before this class I couldn't tell you what the 20/20 conservation was. My first thoughts that it was just some land conservation in SWFL that helped a little. But it is way more then just some conservation agency. The 20/20 conservation has been around since 1996 that gains access to certain areas that need to be protected. They are used to protect the environment from the plants and animals to the surrounding water and many various habitats that are in the areas.  I really like what the 20/20 conservation is doing and I think that we need more agencies like this all of the world to help conserver and keep our planet growing and beautiful. Even though they are using our taxs dollars its for a good cause not like building a pointless new road. It's conserving the beautiful land around us and keeping it safe. So i don't mind. 

Journal Entry #2

RESTORATIVE ENVIRONMENT

1/14/2014

So, I spend a lot of my time outdoors, either at the beach or on a field playing all types of sports. But, on my most recent trip to Israel it gave me that sense of feeling restored and rejuvenated. This past summer (summer 2013) I took a free trip to Israel with my cousin and 25 other students from across the state of Florida and it was breath taking. We were there for ten days and we must have been outside at least half a day each day. Weather it was when we had to sleep in tents in the Bedouin in the middle of the desert, floating in the Dead Sea, hiking Mt. Massadah or jumping in the natural springs with huge water falls at the bottom. I felt so refreshed and restored at the end of each day. Being on this amazing trip of a lifetime technology was obsolete and it was amazing not stress so texts, emails, calls, facebook, twitter, nothing. It was so surreal to go all ten days without and actually was so easy. So, at FGCU I do feel relaxed at certain time like right after a test and your walking through main campus and the sun is out and the wind is blowing, I sometimes just sit on the grass and breath and take a load off to just unwind and chill. So it is extremely easy for me to relate to Louv’s story. No, I do not have ADHD but  do have ADD (attention deficit disorder) and it does affect my life to a certain extent. I needed to be outside not because of ADD because that was my place to unwind and not to have a worry in the world. I wasn’t diagnosed until I was twelve but growing up I knew being outside was my sense of place. That’s where I was able to be myself and not care about what was going on around either in class or at home.

Journal Entry #1

INCOMING REFLECTION

1/7/2014

Being a senior here at FGCU I already had a general idea of what colloquium was about. From friends and peers telling me whom they had, or where they went on certain field trips or even how much work they received. So I came in with a lot of knowledge from outside resources. So with all these insights I figured colloquium would be a pretty time consuming class when it came to the work that needed to be done but I was definitely excited to get out of the class room for field trips. So I figured it probably had a nice balance of work and fun all meshed together. The field trips are definitely the biggest plus side to this class. I love just being outside and in the sun being able to just get out of the classroom setting while still learning is my favorite thing. Being ADD I learn so much more when it is something that interests me, not being in a classroom is something that definitely interests me. I really hope to learn more about the SW Florida area and the environment around us. I took “Environment Biology of SW Florida” as a freshman and didn’t really get the most I could out of it. I really want to learn about what’s going on around me. I think having colloquium as a mandatory class here at FGCU it keeps us well rounded and knowledgeable about our surroundings.