A Walk Around the Block...

I went home to Tampa this past weekend. My parents were both in Jersey, so I had to stay with my sister. She has two puppies, and I watched them while she went to work. I took the dogs out many times during both the day and night. Since my sister was having a fence put up, I was able to observe a lot.

The grass was green and taller in some places than others. I saw lots of ants, beetle-looking bugs, and even a lime green frog. The cows behind her home mooed loudly during the day, and the Sandhill Cranes whooped at night. Since my sister lives waaaaay back in the neighborhood, driving to get there provided a lot of observation opportunity. there was grassy fields and people walking. More than once I passed a group of children riding bikes and playing football in the street on my way to her house.

My Initial Thoughts...

I had been regretting taking this class. I had heard that it was not just boring, but also a lot of busy work. Two of my friends had taken it previously, and had both complained about the John Dewey book. Also, I am in no way an "outdoorsy" sort of girl, and had had a bad experience in the class of Marine Systems. Needless to say, I was not too thrilled.

However, the moment I walked into class, I could tell that it would not be so bad. What we first did was go out on the trails. Assuming it would be gross and buggy, I braced myself for the worst. It was not bad at all! The trail was very pretty, and I got very excited when I learned we had trees that were native to Australia, where I have dual citizenship. I know this sounds cliche, but I really did learn a lot on the trail.

Key Terms(some defined by www.merriam-webster.com)

These are some notes and/or definitions of the key terms we learned in the first class. I don't have all of them, so feel free to comment if you know some that I have left blank.

Restoration- the act of restoring or the condition of being restored.

Keystone Species- examples: 1) Alligators- without them digging holes, there would be less animals around. 2) Sea otters- eat urchins and kelp. 3) Gopher Tortoises.

Umbrella Species-

Mitigation- Allowing natural systems to survive human impact.

Growth Management-

Green Building-

Habitats- where animals live (duh!)

Conservations- places designated to help save animals.

Watershed- Examples: Streams, lakes, Lake Okeechobee.

Carrying Capacity- The ability of land to hold a population.

Aquifer- "a water-bearing stratum of permeable rock, sand, or gravel (www.merriam-webster.com)"

Preservation- Kind of self-explanatory, no?

Sustainability- "of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged (www.merriam-webster.com)"

Sense of place-

Ecological Perspective-

May 5, 2008

Today we walked the trails around our campus with Professor Davis. I'm not really a nature kind of gal, so I wasn't too thrilled to "explore the wilderness." However, once we got out there, I realized just how beautiful our campus truly is and learned a lot about some of the animals and trees along the way. I actually enjoyed learning about our ecology here in Southwest Florida.

We also watched a video about how our school came about. I cannot believe how much planning, money, and lawyers it took to get our school started. It's actually really inspirational. Thank goodness for Ben Hill Griffin!

So, I thought I'd post some pictures and information about some of the things we saw along the way on the trail. The first, is the Melaleuca tree (see above, it's from www.killerplants.com). The Melaleuca tree is also known as the "paper" tree as well as the "punk" tree. This tree is native to Australia, and has a paper-like bark texture. It is indeed a "punk", in the sense that it dries up water and is difficult to get rid of. My father, a fellow Aussie says they are, "bloody nuisances."

Another "species" we encountered on our journey was the Common Grackle. Professor Davis explained that the bird can often be confused with a Crow, but the Grackle has a distinct difference. It has a yellow ring around the eyes.