Final Impressions (Blog # 10)

My overall final impressions on Colloquium is average. On a scale of 1-10, my experience was about a 6.

I loved majority of the field trips and assignments, but the wiki was not my favorite. Since so many of us students are advanced in social networking, I feel Facebook and text messaging was easier to communicate with. It just made it complicating with so many different websites to check on a regular basis. Some of the readings were pretty difficult to comprehend. I did enjoy reading A Land Remembered, and State of the World. Those books were pretty straight forward and interesting. Minus a few assignments, I would recommend this course to up and coming students.

I would add in more in-class group projects and keep the service learning presentation a major assignment. I enjoyed watching people present their projects in different ways versus those boring PowerPoints.

I want to thank Professor Davis for this opportunity and putting in her time and effort into making this an enjoyable class!

Downtown Fort Myers (Blog # 8)

Downtown Fort Myers was a bitter sweet place for me. I was anticipating the trip, but when we pulled into the cemetery it started to rain! It was difficult to hear Dr. Snapp and Professor Davis speaking, but for me to actually be there and see the graves of the Fort Myers founders was awesome.

I had never been in the downtown Fort Myers area before so it was interesting to see some of the sites in our area that people are attracted to. Seeing the bank, art center, monuments, yacht docks, mangroves on the water, theatre, post office arcade and Hotel Indigo were so interesting. Also, the courthouse looked amazing. The structure and history behind it gives it its character.

I actually encouraged my roommate to come with me to take a stroll in the downtown area. We went to that little pizza shop and enjoyed some of the history behind the area. She actually loved the area since she is pursuing a career in art.

 

The only things I didn't like about the trip was the weather. It put a damper on the mood, but luckily I had brought my umbrella!

Matanzas Pass Preserve (Blog # 6)

Matanzas Pass Preserve turned out to be my second favorite field trip. Going in and meeting the woman who maintains the facility was awesome. She was so passionate about what she does and loves to educate others about her home town.

Then, we went out onto the board walk and saw the mangroves. It was so fun because we could touch the leaves. Then we learned the difference between red, white, and black mangroves. Since I am always up to trying new things, I licked the back of a black mangrove leaf. It was so salty, but to interesting because I had never known that leaves play an important role.

All of the trees along the board walk has so many functions and purposes.

Finally, we went out to the over look over the water. It was so peaceful to see how calm the water was.

Conservation 2020's mission is to preserve Florida's natural habitats. I had never heard of this program until this class and never been to any of the preserves spoken about in the website. In my hometown, we have the Weeki Wachee preserves that are maintained by Swift Mud, and strictly enforced. Normally, I would say using tax dollars on land preservation is not a priority, but maybe using a percentage is appropriate.

Canoe Trip in a Fresh Water Area (Blog # 5)

I enjoyed the canoe trip more than any of the other field trips. I was anticipating this trip the most, and met all of my standards. The weather was perfect, my canoe partner was perfect, and we got to see some of the plants we had learned about. Seeing the different mangroves while in the water was so awesome. So many of the plants and animals depend on water as a source for life. My favorite part of the trip was seeing the dolphins. One of them went right next to our canoe probably about 10 feet away! It was so neat and peaceful to be out on the water. I had been on a week long canoe trip when I was younger, and the site we went to for this trip topped all of the other trips I had been on. I would go on this trip again and it should be a course requirement for all students.

Picture Sources:

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