Colloquium Reflection

This Colloquium class was a very interesting course for me from different aspects. In the personal part it made me more sensitive about what is happening around me, regarding the damages that we have caused to the different ecosystems on earth. I worry about what is going to be left of our environment for my children to enjoy. I see things in a different way. I appreciate more everything I see, the air I breathe and what I have. It made me realize that even the little things I change in my daily life can help our environment in a big way. In the academic aspect, it helped me understand the different options, and the urge that we have to do something about the situation we are living. It opened my eyes regarding the role of the government. My Major is Resort Hospitality, my career has to do with tourism and it depends on the environment. Every section in this course had something to do with my major. It is important to educate the future professionals of our country about what is happening because the future is on their hands.
English is my second language. I have to admit that some of the readings were difficult for me. I liked the way the course was given with videos and that we had the chance to post our thoughts. I do think it is a lot of work and that most of the time we are just repeating the same subject. I do not consider that this course is about learning as much as it is about realizing and become more sensitive. Like I said I enjoyed it, I see myself more receptive about the subject and it helped me understand the consequences of the actions of many years.

A school day thirty years from now.....

A school day thirty years from now........ I will be sleeping in this aerobed, it is a kind of floating bed. I have a robot maid that wakes me up, at that time we will pick my outfit for the day. She will show me on her bellyscreen my wardrobe, so I can make a selection. She takes in to consideration the weather and where I am going. While I am taking a shower my robot maid will prepare breakfast for me, most of the foods are just pills and powders. I will get ready and unplug my little robot assistant, he is awesome and he is so organized. He is a phone, on the monitor that happens to be his face, I can see the person that I am talking to. He takes care of my datebook, takes notes and records for me. I can use the internet through him, print and the best he actually walks and talks. He is my little pet too. By this time I would get in my personal vehicle that will transport me to my destination automatically without me having to drive, I just tell it where I am going and it will take me to the place, now I can put my makeup on! I get to school, my class today is International Business, so we have on the wall different screens with teachers from different countries. During the class we have discussions, my assistant takes notes for me that way I can listen and participate in the discussion. The whole world is connected as one but that does not change the idea of the economy, the advancement in technology and the luxuries.
When I get home my little assitant and my robot maid have communicated so I have my dinner, bath and pijamas ready. Before that, I have my small gym and spa room where I have these awesome gym machines! When I am finished these robots give me massages on the muscles that I worked out and my feet!!!! Oh it feels great!! I put my pijamas on and lay down, I can control the temperature of my bed, the humidity in my house, the lights, television and everything else through my little assistant. I plug him in to charge and everybody and everything, goes to sleep!

Service Learning Reflection

This is the first time that I did community hours, for me it was a great experience. Being able to lend a hand to my community and environment, made me feel like a link in the chain of this community, it is strong. My service learning hours were done in different places. The first one was with Estero Aquatic Preserve. It was a very unique and exciting experience, not only was I helping but I also had the opportunity to experience wildlife that I would not usually be able to see. We went out on a boat, launched at Lovers Key and we went to small islands around the coast line to count bird nests. It amazed me that the director was able to identify the species of bird by only looking at the nests. I was not really familiar with the different types of birds but once you have seen the birds it makes it easier to identify them. It was my first time using binoculars and while I was looking through them because of the motion of the boat from the waves it made me seasick. My second experience was done at The Naples Botanical Garden. This was also new for me I hardly pull my own weeds and here I am clearing out a whole section of weeds from a bed of cypress palms. Even though it was hot and a lot of bugs it was still an enlightening experience. I got to see beauty at its early stage when I had the opportunity to plant small birds of paradise plants. I felt that I had left my seed in this place, once they grow I can go back and show my children what I helped create. I have used pruners before but not as much as I got to use them on this day. I now realized that it takes a lot of time and effort to maintain gardens as beautiful as this one in the Naples Botanical Garden. What I took from this experience was the harmony of humans and nature working together to make natural beauty. After I had finished this activity I realized the importance of students doing this volunteer work because it brings them closer to the environment, gives them a hands-on experience and the most important - appreciation of their surroundings. Even after my degree I am sure I would like to volunteer my time again.

Endgame

Once more we see how politics and economy tries to trump over conservation of the environment. While some politicians were looking in developing an airport in Homestead and the monetary benefits that it would bring to the economy, some people thought that the construction of the airport would be the destruction of the everglades. They thought that it would block the recharge of the regions water by cutting the natural flow of the watershed as well as the natural filtration process that the water needs. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan was created because the Everglades is dying, despite that Florida conservationists had helped stop plume hunts, preserve millions of acres of wetlands and secure the largest nutrient clean up in history. Even though it looked like the politicians were going to get their way and the airport was going to be built, conservation of the Everglades prevailed and the project was rejected. It was very heartfelt to know that even though the conservationists had no money to start a campaign, the wealthy residents of the Ocean Reef Club ( which happens to be directly under the flight plans for the new airport) decided to provide them with a 2 million dollar war chest. That was enough money to start a campaign complete with lobbyists, economic consultants and a slick ad depicting a flock of jets flying over Biscayne bay under the caption: Somehow, it’s not quite the same. If the outcome had been different we may have regreted it tomorrow, considering that the Everglades is the most beloved wetland on the planet and it is one of the most important and richest ecosystems in Florida.

The Nature of The Everglades

It is amazing the history that The Everglades has. Reading this article makes you see how the whole ecosystem of The Everglades is formed and maintained, and that the whole system works together perfectly. Since the beginning it has always been considered a “mysterious and beautiful” place. It starts near Lake Okeechobee and spreads over to the Gulf of Mexico, being that this is an estuary, the fresh water meets with the saltiness of the ocean. It is very unique because of the richness that it has and because of the water and the grass together. One characteristic of this place is its grass that looks like a great thick arc, considered the greatest concentration of saw grass in the world. The water comes from the rain and after several journeys through streams and creeks moves down into Lake Okeechobee. Water from the lake in the wet season forms a slow-moving river, flowing to the southern end of the state. The Everglades experience frequent flooding in the rainy season and droughts in the dry season. The underlying bedrock or limestone of the Everglades basin affects the hydroperiod, or how long an area within the region stays flooded throughout the year as well as the plant life, and the wildlife above it. The rock is especially porous and stores water during the dry season and its chemical composition determines the vegetation prevalent in the region. The varieties of plants offer habitats for different animals. Once more we can see the connection between organisms for survival. It is very sad that we as humans do not relate to this perfect connection that the ecosystem has.

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Reflection on: As the World Burns

The main point I took from this article was how hard it seems to be to get a major law written about climate change. "The Three Amigos" or Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham, had spent 7 long months writing a bill that was supposed to transform the approach on energy and climate change. They had come farther than any other climate-change legislation had come before. They had come so close to making it a reality, President Obama had pulled a couple rugs out from under them when he gave away the $54 billion in new nuclear loan guarantees and also when he promised to open up areas in the Atlantic East coast, the Arctic Ocean and in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling. Those were going to be used as leverage for those three against the Rebuplicans to get them on board with the bill. There were also other forces against them too like the media spinning their words and calling it a "carbon tax". One of the largest blows the bill took was when the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid made the announcement that he wanted to pass immigration reform before the climate-change bill. The entire Senate knew there was no immigration bill, it was a cynical ploy and it hurt. I believe that these three were the closest to getting it done and if they had a chance to do it all over they would maybe change their attack strategy to have a better outcome.

Footprint

According to the foot print calculator I would need 4.7 earths. It would take 20.9 of the earths productive area to support my lifestyle.
Everything that we need to survive we get it from our environment but like every ecosystem it needs to exist a harmony and balance between human-environment. Sustainability is important because it is a way to assure that we have and will continue to have the water, materials, and resources to protect human health and our environment. Footprint is a calculation of the human pressure on the planet it gives us a possible view of the resources that we might be using and what we are putting back.
The measure is showing us where we are living our biggest footprint, we can use this to cut back in our lifestyle choices. I am going to try and purchase products that use less packaging or are made of recycling products as well products that are grown locally.

Reflect on: National Geographic’s Strange Days: The One Degree Factor

We never think about what is happening in the rest of the world while we are living our busy lives. Our everyday actions can be affecting or affect in the future a species that we do not even know. In the case of the porcupine caribou herd they have been greatly affected by the one degree temperature change. Due to the one degree average temperature change, Alaska is receiving more severe storms than before. It causes warmer weather to produce rain in December. When snow is on the ground caribou dig out the snow to expose the lichen which is their nutrition for the winter, but with the rain it causes a layer of ice underneath the snow and it keeps these animals from reaching their meal. Because of the burning of the fuels which has destroyed part of the atmosphere we have now raised the planets average temperature by one degree Fahrenheit.
Another effect is the temperature regime change of the pacific. This refers to when the water on the coast of Oregon is warmer than the water offshore. Then it reverses all together making the coastal water cooler and offshore warmer. The consequences are that the number of krill that make their ascend to the surface is fewer as well the frequency is less often, meaning that animals that feed on the krill suffer and their numbers decline. That species also feeds other species that suffer and so on. The ecosystem might get to a point of collapse. The things that I have read and learned over the past few weeks have astounded me. The saddest thing is that these examples are just the tip of the iceberg and there are many many more that we have not even discovered. So let’s just think for a moment how many species may disappear before we solve the problem.

Reflect on : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

I never thought about the end of our ancestors in the way that the article is describing what could have happen to them. I always admire the man from the past because inside of me I had the belief that they did have a harmonious relationship with our environment but I never thought possible the idea that they could have people dying of starvation. Diamond has a lot of sense in the possibilities that he describes that conducted the old societies to collapse. In some point I can agree now in saying that this might be a very similar situation that we are living now and can lead us to our own end. One of the differences between the past communities and ours nowadays is that they might have been more ignorant than us, and that the hunger for power was not as great as it is today. At the same time it is true that they did not have the technology that we have now, that could save us or accelerate this collapse. It is ironic but at the same time that technology can be helpful to us it can also be harmful. The truth is that some of those societies did not survive and it is a mystery to really find out how the relationship between man and environment was.
We can not compare ourselves to our ancestors. Times and human needs are different and in the past years the major problem was to survive; to us the actual problem is who’s got more power. Another factor is that climate changes have always been present and if we see ourselves like an animal species (what we really are) we can or can not adapt to climate changes or the new conditions around us. We can also add that the society’s response to a threat depends on its political, economic, social and cultural values. I consider these factors to be manageable, but it is more difficult to deal with ecosystems-climate problems.

Reflect on: Love It Or Lose It

I never thought that there are people that could be uncomfortable with nature. Reading this article made me realize that because of the knowledge that we have and the power we have obtained through technology, now we have the choice to decide if we want to be part of nature or not. It is not awkard that a person that has been raised with so much technology around it would not have feelings for nature. On the contrary, it can cause more conditions that make people dislike nature. This will lead to control and explotaition of nature and this will just take us to our own destruction. It is just ironic that those that don’t do or care for our environment get to take advantage of things that other people are working for(they don’t care about maintaining the water system but they get to enjoy drinking clean water). Like I said that is the irony in life. I guess you can see this in lot of businesses. Living a quality life is not a business, and the earth belongs to everybody so “everybody” has a responsibility in maintaining our ecosystem. We can not be indifferent to the situation that we our going through. It is a real problem that we just deal with what we know and we do not care about what we do not know and this can be solved in some way by educating our children. This can be imposed in the early childhood showing them the world but not with the eyes of survival only, forging an emotional bond, teaching them, making them conscious and letting them know the responsibility that humankind has with what is happening and might happen. Letting them have their natural childhood. The other aspect that needs to be changed is rural life, recovering and knowing their local ecology, showing them how they can use it in their economy and life patterns without sacrificing their quality of life or the land(sustainability). Making each person part of the problem (indirectly or directly) and the solution.

Reflect on: Land Ethic

It is curious how the human society has taught us about the ethics in general (commitment of belonging to a community)but we have no idea how to have a commitment with our land, the one that nourishes and maintains us. We should have more respect and love for what we have, it is very true that for the man the only value that the land has is economic and this is very sad. Humans need to understand that we are just one of the species on earth and because we are only one more, we should have a harmonious relationship with the land like other animals have. It feeds us so we shouldn't alter the natural process of it. We have rights to it but at the same time we have obligations with it. We need to see that the other animals and plants have the same rights that we do! Now days because of the increase in population man have had to come up with different methods to overproduce food, but is there a way that we can do this without affecting the land or diminish this damage? In some way it's understandable that the farmers are ignorant of the way they treat the land, it only gives them food and they need to eat. I don’t think they have the vision of thinking that one day those resources are going be gone if we do not take care of them. The fact that the government gives them incentives to conserve and offers educational programs is a good start. They definetely need to be involved in these programs and understand the importance and benefits this is going to bring. While imposing these new methods, farmers need to be monitored at least until they get the idea of conservance. I think it is very difficult to feel love for something that you have never cared about before, but it's to make them understand and feel how the land is a part of us so they get to see and feel the land as theirs. It is amazing how everything in the planet has a mission. We were put on earth for something and I am sure it was not to destroy. The human being needs to be more conscious of its surroundings and stop thinking on the economic self-interest. If we don’t take care of it now, we are not going to have anything in the future to make an economy of!

Reflect on Nature-Deficit Disorder And The Restorative Environment

I am a mother of two boys and since my oldest son was born (he is seven) I have always tried for him to have contact with nature. I would always take him to parks, beaches and natural spaces. When my second son was born I still tried to do the same, but unfortunately because I had to start working it wasn’t with the same frequency. They are boys and I noticed that when they spend too much time at home they would go crazy, act aggressively to each other and they wouldn’t listen, so I would always think to myself I need to take them out, it was like inside of me I knew that they needed to take that stress out and being outside would help them. Now that I read this article I understand and I am able to say that it does work for me and my boys, the influence that our environment has on us, for me it does make a lot of sense “humans need nature”. Our brain needs to breathe too and with this contemporary world where everything is stressful, were there is visual, audio and environmental contamination it is very saturating and over-stimulating for our minds. The green therapy is the healthiest medicine for our brain with no side effects. It is very frustrating as a parent to know that at schools they don’t give a value to the time of recess but they focus more in the academic part, these go together. It is important that we teach children since they are young the importance of having a healthy mind and the ways to do it. I always think that the world that my kids see is the world that I showed them. It is in this time of their lives that we need to show them how to appreciate what we have. For a person to be successful in life as a professional and human being, needs peace and tranquility in it’s mind and the only resource that gives us this would be nature, if we have the ability to admire and be able to enjoy our surroundings we will also have the ability to be better people.

Reflect on What Is Biodiversity and Why Is It so Important?

It is a realistic truth that human development, and I am referring at the economical and technological aspects, have affected the balance of our biodiversity. In my opinion the human population has become so greedy and selfish that it never thought about their surroundings. It has always been about “how can we be better and make our lives easier” but not once have we thought about how we can keep our diversity, what can we do to maintain it or to make it better. I think it is very true in the article when they refer to us as ignorant, everything has been created for a purpose and I sometimes don’t understand why is it so hard for us to keep a balance with our diversity if our ancestors did it for so many years. Maybe ambition? Power? It just seems that we consider ourselves with the power to manipulate and destroy because we are the top of the food chain or the more intelligent? we are wrong… we are the most ignorant species on earth, the only one that creates things to destroy our own and others and is not even for necessity of survival. It touches me when I see all these documentaries about what we have done and the saddest thing is that most of what is done can not be fixed, we already killed (I consider this is the term that we should use) lots of animals and plants, we are trying to replace them with ones created in labs and what about the environment do we really think: how this can be affected? Oh no I guess what really matters is that it “satisfies our needs”. It’s ironic that now that we see how the ecosystems have changed and the effects that are bringing us now we do care about our environment after harming it so much so now it’s important because it’s affecting us not because of what we did already and hurt a lot of different living organisms. The only thing I can say is that we can not recover the lost but it is important to try and save what we have and for this we need a lot of education and change our views of what we have and what we need.

Reflect upon your current “sense of place” and how that sense relates to educational experiences in the out-of-doors.

I have always been conscious of what is going on around me but I really have never found the way that I could help even though I don’t really consider that I have contributed to destroy or alter any kind of life. I do what I can to do my part, by not buying products that can harm the environment, I try to save water, recycle and basic things like this that I also try to teach my boys. All of this animal cruelty makes me feel sad and helpless, for example; the killing of the dolphins in Asia is brutal and unnecessary and many more animals as well. The overfishing that is only done for money and not taking in consideration the effects to the environment and to our poor people too. The plants that have been used for many years and even today some indigenous groups still use as medicine, what are we trying to do? manipulate them. Honestly I never thought about how plants have been affected and all the consequences this has brought. We are all one big ecosystem and I think this is what we need to understand each one of the different species on earth has a part to play and with one harmed or missing it’s going to affect the whole ecosystem. It is terrible that only the humans are guilty of the destruction of other species and that it’s causing our own destruction. I think everything we need to live, cure our diseases, satisfy our hunger even clothing we can find in nature. Everything that is needed to keep a balance was in the same environment but with so many “new” things we brought into it, everything altered and now we are just seeing the consequences of our selfishness.

Reflect on Healing’s Earth Scars: It’s Never Too Late

It is very satisfactory to know that there are people and governments that see the importance of saving and maintaining our biodiversity. It is important to realize that the starting point is “education” to understand how to use the resources in a healthy way, where we don’t alter the ecosystem, also to learn how to stop harming our environment and to be taught the ways that we can restore the damages that have been done. How nature has the ability to fluorish after being devastated is so amazing and at the same time once it is restored it can bring life back and can be habitats for other species again. I remember when I was a little girl the most important river in my city “Rio Bogota” was so contaminated that it even had a horrible smell and at that time I never thought it was possible that it could be cleaned. In some way technology has been bad but at the same time it has given us the chance to pay back the damage that we have done by being able to clean the water through different systems, eventhough it might be expensive, it is the least thing we can do for our planet and for our own future. When I think about it, it seems like there is not much a single person can do to be productive but after reading these articles and watch the videos related to this subject, I now realize that one person can do extraordinary things when it comes to the intent of saving endangered species. For example; one person can raise money then use the money to educate the population about the importance of endangerment. After all the destruction, contamination, deforastation and scars that we have left on this planet any time is a good time to start changing the way we think, the things we do and the way we teach our children. In reality the future of this ecosystem depends on the way our children act with it and it depends on us to teach them the right and the wrong way. In closing, eventhough we have caused the damage we are given a second chance to make our planet a better place to live.

Introducing myself!!!

Hi, my name is Sandra. I was born in Bogota, Colombia. I have 2 brothers and 1 sister and they live in Bogota. I graduated from high school in 1997 my school’s name is Nuevo Reino de Granada. I have always considered myself very athletic, which is my passion. The first job I ever had was as an aerobic instructor and in my free time I would go to the gym as much as I could. I attended Universidad Externado de Colombia and my major was Hospitality Management. I decided I wanted to do my internship in the United States so I applied at the Radisson Suite Beach Resort in Marco Island and I got accepted. It was a great experience however, it was difficult that it was the first time that I was away from my family and so far away from them too. But I learned to be more independent and to make my own money and maintain myself, overall It was a good way of gaining responsibility. My first position at the hotel was as gift shop attendant and later I transferred to the food and beverage department and I stayed there because I thought the money was good. At this same time I met my husband and soon we got pregnant with our first son Sebastian. When Tatan (my son’s nickname) was a little over a year old and I was getting ready to go back to work we got pregnant again with our second child, Matthias. I was blessed with my two angels but professionally I felt very frustrated because I couldn’t finished my thesis and wasn’t able to get my degree. So I continued working as a server and bartender, I had no other choice because now I had to pay bills and look after two children. It was very hard for me with my sons so young. Now that my kids are 7 and 5, they are finally in school and I see the opportunity to go back to school to get my degree. My goal is to make more money but work less and be able to spend more quality time with my family. I am losing the best years of my son’s life because of work and that is not what I want. After so many years and with the work experience that I have I can say that my point of view about life and my prospective are very different to what they were. I realize the importance of being a professional because I consider knowledge to be power. As I close I would like to share these words of wisdom with everybody: My dad used to tell us “ I might not be able to leave you lots of money but I will educate you and that will be your weapon in life, nobody can take that away from you”!