Week 2-Campus Walk

Week 2-Campus Walk

This week’s class involved familiarizing ourselves with the FGCU campus…intimately.  The class discussed how the site for the school was chosen and how the university’s mission of environmental sustainability was the focus of everything that goes on here.  As far as the site selection is concerned, no matter where a facility of this magnitude is built there will be some detrimental environmental impact, we as humans have that kind of effect on the planet.  The university has taken the initiative to engineer more energy efficient buildings and design a campus that is environmentally sensitive while still allowing for close access to learning environments on campus, preserve land, and nature trails.  When the discussion ended we headed out to the campus nature trail for a little hike.  This involved trekking through knee-deep swamp water, complete with cypress knees to trip over.  Getting this close to nature that you drive by every day definitely changes the way one looks at the campus environment as well as the natural areas of Florida that still exist.  It also makes you realize just how drastically humans have altered the landscape here in Southwest Florida.  The water in the swamp was surprisingly clear, until the class disturbed it, which made me think of how the majority of SWFL was covered with this slow moving clear water, until development disturbed it.  It’s a sad but similar parallel of the damage humans are capable of.