Community Service Presentations

Today we presented ourselves on the topic of community service we have been doing. I of course did my volunteer work at the Food Forest located at Florida Gulf Coast University. About a half a dozen other students did the same thing as me, but that's okay because they mentioned a few things that I had forgotten about. This concludes my work as a Colloquium student and at writing in this online journal. Thank you for reading. The End.

25 New Reef Fish Species

According to another article, this month 25 new species of fish were discovered in the ocean. I guess I find this information so fascinating because I've always been interested in marine life. Since I started with a 1.5 gallon freshwater tank in middle school, I have grown more obsessive and now I am maintaining a 30 gallon saltwater tank as a senior in college (not a great idea). It's extremely costly and high maintenance, especially for a college student paying their own way. However, now you can see why I mentioned this article over others. 

Shown above is a picture of the 'Fairy Basslet' found only at one particular deep reef off Indonesia.  

Risky Offshore Drilling

According to a recent online article, just a little over a week ago the Obama administration announced plans to dramatically expand offshore oil drilling, particularly in the Arctic as well as in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This plan schedules 15 lease sales in six offshore areas where an oil spill would be nearly impossible to clean up. Obama's plan also encourages further reliance on oil and threatens species already stressed by the impacts of climate change. Most people are against this solely because of the polar bears. However, I am personally against such measures because I am most upset about the pollution of our waters. If there is any untroddened territory left on this earth, it is in our waters and I am personally anxious for a marvelous discovery of species one of these days. 

Estero Brush Fire

Yesterday afternoon a brush fire started in Estero right off of I-75. Today the smell of smoke is strong and is supposed to last a few more days. They say it was difficult to put out because the firefighters were having trouble getting through the dense brush. I think that it would be a good idea to work on more evenly distributing trees in populated ares. To me this is sign that we still need to keep our environment somewhat in check and to tidy up once in awhile because it always seems that areas are either unhealthily lacking greenery while the remaining others are unhealthily dense. The brush fire would not have taken off so easily if there was a little more room in between trees and bushes.

Home Garden

Today I helped my dad with our own personal garden. There was a spontaneous thunderstorm with really high winds so I helped him gather and replant his herbs afterward which is what the garden mostly consists of. We live in a gated community so we aren't really allowed to plant much. We never have to buy many spices though, especially rosemary, because we just go right outside and cut some fresh for ourselves. However, a spider did almost crawl on my hand at this time.

The Garden at Eden

Today I completed another 5 hours of community service at a place called the Garden at Eden Organic Farm. We basically weeded and rearranged plants for this place with the goal of restoring some organization to the garden since they were inbetween caretakers. This place also happens to be some sort of school for autistic children which I enjoyed because I have worked with autistic children in the past. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see much of them.

Downtown Fort Myers

Today we took our last field trip to Downtown Fort Myers where we learned a lot about Thomas Edison and other historical occurrences of the area. Apparently, the first light bulb ever to be invented was made partly out of bamboo. Here are some pictures that I took along the way...