ECHO Field Trip

Melanie-
 This trip was really nice, I was to learn many new things. It also gave me the urge to have a garden myself. We were able to taste some nice fresh fruits! I tasted the strawberries and it was very delicious.

Fresh Fruits

Some of the cool things I learned during our trip were that macadamia nuts are the strongest nuts! In order to crush them they must be put in the oven in order to break them more easily. It also blooms all year around and is from Australia.

Macadamia Bush

I learned a really cool fact about Bananas, they are actually not trees, but the largest herb in the world!

They had cool little hand washing stations all around the farm which were pretty neat to have. You put your foot on the pedal in order for the water to come out. 

Cristina:

If you can't tell this pictures illustrates how people can grow plants on a hill as if it were a level field. We learned that you can easily assemble an A-frame out of three sticks, string, and a rock that measures whether something is level or not. Part of what makes ECHO so intriuging is that they take simple techniques and use them to get the job done.

During the last couple of weeks I have volunteered at the food forrest several times and each time I learn about how amazing the Moringa tree is and how helpful it can be. One example that is used frequently is how moringa can purify water for you and at ECHO they actually had an example. The left is water with Moringa and the right is the water for no treatment. To think all ou need to do is add powder to your water.

This is a table saw powered by a bike!

This is a water pump powered by an eliptical!

During our tour Vic (pictured above) talked about how we don't need electricity or fancy inventions to get water or to get things done, rather we can accomplish all of it with ease if we use what we all ready have. That is a powerful lesson. Instead of reinventing the wheel, use what you have!

Meredith:

Exploring ECHO on our past trip was a very eye-opening experience.  Our class was able to see how much a garden can develop without a lot of work entailed at all.

Above is the "Tabitian Butternut, which is also referred to as Tropical Pumpkin.  It was seeded on February 27 and transplanted on March 19.  They are spread out across a carpet like material, so it does not require any maintaining like soil or sand would.

Solar Pasteurization that our tour guide Vic informed us about can pasteurize five liters of water every 2 hours.  The "AquaPak" provides up to 15 liters of water per day and all you have to do is fill it up with water and lay it on a flat surface in the sun.  Then, a built-in "WAPI" indicates when the water has reached the necessary temperature of 66 degree celsius/151 degrees fahrenheit for pasteurization. 

Bamboo was also planted at ECHO and is a very sturdy, tall plant.  It is a diverse group of fast-growing, woody grass-like plants.  Bamboo provides materials for construction and many other uses to small scale farmers.

Exploring the various plants and foods that are available in the ECHO garden and nursery made me realize how easy it is to create a sustainable lifestyle.  As Vic stated, "culture is very slow and difficult to change," but if people want to adopt a healthier way of living, then the transition will occur and be very productive.

Christian
I really liked the field trip to ECHO. I was worried that this trip would be boring, but besides being cold it was very enjoyable. We got to try some of the fruits they had harvested. One thing that amazed me was the section with all the tools and devices that are used every day in some places on earth. It is hard to believe that stuff that simple is used. But it is and it is very effective. Another part of the trip I liked was the duck pond. I didn't know it was possible to get ducks to stay in a pond. I also didn't know that they were good for the water and that you only need a 1 foot tall fence to keep them in. Later on in the tour we learned how labor intensive rice is to grow that surprised me. Another thing that I was surprised about was how hard bamboo was. I thought it was more like a plant that got though when it dried, so I was not expecting it to be that hard when it was still growing. So in the end I enjoyed, especially because of our tour guide Vic, who was very funny and knowledgeable.

March 19: Gardening

Melanie: 

Biophlia design helps to understand that we as human beings need to include other living systems in our lives. When we design our cities we need to include the environment. Many people actually are bio phobic and don't actually do anything to help the environment, but they will donate money to organizations just to make themselves feel better. This is really cool if we would instill this concept more in our lives. The point of this is that we must be willing to change and take care of what we have, for people that are coming after us, without it we have nothing.

Growing Indoors:

Planting indoors is good; it helps keep plants away from all the harsh Florida weather that can happen. You must have the proper lighting, the correct pot. Don't get a pot that will collect a lot of water.

Seeds must b taken outside occasionally, they can get sun burns, which is next I never thought that seeds could actually get a sun burn. It sounds funny to even talk about.

Growing your our food can be empowering, many say it's a way to learn how to be self sufficient. Being able to grow your own food is the way to freedom and this can teach you important values. You don't have to rely on anyone beside yourself. 

Meredith:

By growing our own garden, we begin the journey of sustaining ourselves and maintaining a healthier lifestyle. If you have ever had fruit or vegatables from a tree or vine, you know that it instantly tastes fresher than foods you have purchased at a grocery store. Gardening should be fun and enjoyable and you will learn something new each year, whether that be a new growing technique, a new harvesting sign, or a new tool to use. It is important to make certain that you learn from your mistakes and begin to improve your garden every year because the more you grow, the more you will learn.

Beginning with a small, well-maintained garden is better than a large, unkept one when you start gardening for the first time. Keeping a garden journal will ensure that your garden continues to get better because one of the trickiest thing to do when living in Florida is knowing what and when to plant. Growing fruits and vegetables is all about location. It is importnat to choose a site where plants won't grow long and strectched to a point where diseases and insects will move in. Do not plant fruits and vegetables where there is competition for water and nutrients because you want to make sure they prosper. We grow by interacting with nature, so instead of cutting it off, we need to surround ourselves by it on a daily basis.



Cristina:
I really enjoy that we have reached a point in the class that where we are learning how to be proactive and can do it in a fun way. Over the last couple of weeks I have been doing service learning at the Food Forrest and have learned tips on how to grow  vegetables and fruit. My experience itself has been awesome and challenging in the sense that there is always something new to learn every time I volunteer. More importantly I loved being able to pick up the required reading and connect my experiences to the material. I enjoyed watching the video at the end of class because it highlights the success of someone who is applying the knowledge every single day.

Some tips I've learned along the way:
1. Plan, plan, plan: do your research
2. Start small: plant only what you'll know you'll use and what you have time to maintain
3. Stay optimistic: its a journey
4. Continue to do research
5. Have fun! & enlist help from others

Kristin: 

I learned alot in reading and doing some research for the chapter we presented this week. I don't know much about growing my own food and I have never had my own garden so I enjoy learning about how one starts their own garden. I think there were a lot of useful tips and I think that I could start my own garden with more confidence because I read this chapter. I think that the charts on when you can plant what could be very helpful. After reading this I see how important it is to plant at the right time n I really like having a resource such as these charts to help me if I decide to start my own garden. I like that our chapter wasn't so much focusing on the past and what has gone wrong but rather on helpful tips and information to help us move forward and become more informed on things such as growing our own food.

March 12 Colloquium Reader

Cristina-
        Louv talks about how nature has been taken out of students' lives, and how detrimental it is to them both short them and long term. It is crazy to think that students in elementary and middle school do not get to enjoy recess like I did, nor have time during the day to attend physical education. The best part of the day was heading outside to run around the playground as well as see my friends from other classes as we played on the swings or tell stories on as we layed in the grass. In my opinion, a vital part of a child's development stems from being able to spend time in the outdoors and building a relationship with nature. If your relationship with nature is one that only uses nature for its resources, you probably won't appreciate it as much as someone who enjoys hiking, fishing, or walks in the park. I think it is important to find a way to add nature back into education - but to also let it be one that forms naturally and not forcefully.

Melanie-

Today's class discussion was very interesting; it went from very negative views to a more positive outlook on our environmental future. It all started out with the collapse of our societies and how this has been something that is always occurring. This could easily happen to us if we don't change our ways. Then it went into ways that we could change, like it isn't the end just yet. There is still time for us to do something. Finally the book ended with some good information on Everglades Restoration and the types of animals, plants and flora we have in the everglades that make it so important to us. The Everglades is something that we need to take care of and make sure stays apart of our world. 

"There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth; remote, never wholly known. Nothing anywhere else is like them."

-Marjory Stoneman Douglas

Kristin
I have really enjoyed every presentation our group and others have given through out this class. I like that we give the "lectures" on the chapters, because when our group is assigned a chapter we really get to look into the concepts in the books and gain a better understanding of what they are all about. In our chapters this time I found the Attention-Restoration Theory for people with ADD very interesting. I know a good amount of people who are on medications for ADD and knowing that simply being outdoors could help them is amazing. At the same time it makes me a little upset that doctors are putting all of these people on medications right away without seeing if simply spending some time in nature can help. In addition, I found it very interesting how people are debating on who is to blame for our environmental "unawareness". I think our class had a great discussion on this and I agree that I don't think any one group or people from any certain time period are to blame. I think that over time people as a whole have lost their connection to nature and have begun to overlook how important it is. I think that overall last class all of the groups were able to teach us new and different aspects of the book and they were able to get the class into great discussions.

Meredith-
I found the Attention-Restoration Theory very interesting, which leads to an increased attention span of children, especially those with ADHD.  The Human-Environment Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois found that green outdoor spaces foster create play, improve children's access to positive adult interaction and relieve symptoms of attention-deficit disorder.  Families of ADHD children aged seven to twelve were surveyed about their after-school and weekend activities, which left their children functioning particularly well or poor.  Green activities included, camping and fishing and non-green activities were watching television or playing video games.  They discovered that greenery in a child's everyday environment, even views of green through a window, specifically reduces attention-deficit symptoms.  Encouraging children to play outdoors in green spaces, and advocating recess in schoolyards is a great way to help them benefit from fresh air. Learning this information was very interesting and I realized that outdoor treatment may be the best approach for doctor's to prescribe to children first before medication because it is a healthier alternative for them to adjust to.