Echo

Echo's mission is to teach farmers around the world more sustainable ways to farm, while also showing them how to grow their crops to maximize their efficiency. They have worked in many different areas around the world in order to assist as many people as possible.

Rooftop Gardens
Robertson mentions that rooftop gardens are a good way for those who prefer to live in the city to grow their own food. Wick gardens, as explained by Echo, are a good way to be able to use materials that may be throw out to the trash after replacing a carpet. A wick garden uses carpet as its soil with mulch or straw to keep in moisture, then the seeds are planted directly onto the carpet fibers in order to hold them. Fertilizers that are suggested are manure tea or a soluble fertilizer.




School Gardens
Robertson mentions that school gardens are a good way to teach students new skills, while teaching them to garden. However, the only issue with this would be that students with special needs may not be able to garden and learn from it if they are not able to get on the ground and work. Keyhole gardens and raised beds are a good way for them to be able to assist and learn from gardening as they are higher off the ground and there is a slot in one side of the garden that allows someone to reach the middle of the planter.

Bamboo and Farming
For people who wish to have a sustainable way to keep their garden beds without having to buy wood from stores every few years planting and growing clumping bamboo would provide the necessary materials. Cutting bamboo from the center of the plant will be the older and sturdier pieces. However, to be able to not replace the bamboo for the gardens more often the sugars need to be removed from the insides of the trunks.

Energy and Waste Field Trip - Downtown Fort Myers

Downtown Fort Myers was the most recent field trip. While the area is historic it is also sustainable. Back in the day the area was primarily used for shipping supplies. But now Downtown Fort Myers is one of the major areas for tourism in Southwest Florida.

To the left is a banyan tree. While this tree is non-native it is not invasive. Most of the larger trees throughout Downtown Fort Myers are banyan trees, as they tend to produce more shade in the area. The vines that hang down from the branches are to assist the tree in holding up itself, working as a root system. The older the tree the more vines that hang down and the thicker the trunk. The rings of the tree are even able to assist researchers in determining how a year's climate was.

In the textbook, Robertson wrote about the benefits and costs of recycling. While the textbook may be discussing more man-made materials like plastics, the concept still works for buildings in Downtown Fort Myers. The picture to the right is actually the old bank building which has been turned into the new art gallery. This building, just like many others in the area have been recycled into new buildings with minimal costs. Robertson also talks about the cost of construction and demolition waste. Recycling the building was able to save money in the long run, while this building is rather old, the cost to demolish and remove all of the materials would have cost much more than doing what was done, and renovating it.


Edison, Ford, and Firestone were some of the leading innovators that lived in the area. These three men were able to bring money into the area, bring jobs and people into the area. Their inventions were a large portion of what helped to put Downtown Fort Myers on the map. While each person had their own inventions they all worked together in some fashion to be able to get the manpower, materials, and sometimes energy they needed for their products.

Vester Marine Station

There were many amazing things about the Vester field trip. Besides learning that a few of us have zero talent at canoeing, we focused on learning about the mangroves in the estuary. These plants do so much for Florida that many people don't even realize. However, there are also issues that people may not realize that come from pollution that mangroves may deal with.


Protection from Water

One of the basic functions for mangroves is to act as a sea wall. These trees often grow into a thick line of trees in estuaries and serve as a natural sea wall that protects the coast from storm surge. While most of the homes on waterways use expensive sea walls, using mangroves instead would cut down on the cost and provide a natural privacy barrier. However, when it comes to beaches mangroves would be a large help to the erosion that is constantly taking place and becomes even worse during large hurricanes.



Supporting Biological Diversity

As mangroves grow they gradually form into miniature islands. These small islands help to support populations of many species. Birds will nest in the trees and birds that consume fish will come to live near or within the mangroves. The fish that come to live within the roots of the mangroves and the shallow waters that come with the gradual land, built by the sands that get moved by the water and by animals that end up around mangrove roots.


Mangroves and Pollution

While mangroves are necessary for protection from water and to support biological diversity they also have to deal with pollution. The forms of pollution that affects the mangroves is trash left by humans, and over fertilization of the water. Any trash that gets caught up in the roots of the mangroves has a chance of being eaten by fish, which harms other fish and birds that eat those fish. Fishing line can get caught up in branches, and when fishers cut their lines or the lines snap the line can end up even more tangled and there is a chance that birds can get caught up in those lines.

Six Mile Cypress Slough

Gator Lake

The Six Mile Cypress Slough is a conservation land that has man made lakes. The picture to the left shows the largest man made lake within the conservation grounds. The water seen in the picture is rainwater that has collected into the lake. At one point all of the land in this area were woods, though within the last twenty or so years there has been a major build up of the areas around the slough. With the build up many people do not remember what it was like in the area and some of the younger generations have never seen it as anything other than an area with pavement, stop lights, or stores. This knowledge extinction greatly affects how we all treat the wetlands, and without teaching the youngest and future generations there could be more development on wetlands destroying the ecosystems that do so much to help us. 

Yellow Rat Snake inside of a hole in a tree

Six Mile Cypress is home to many species and the biodiversity of the area itself is amazing without including the animals that live in it. However, the animals that live in it also work to control the population of other species that live there as well. Yellow rat snakes help to control the population of other animals within the cypress slough. They’ll eat rats, mice, some birds, but also bird eggs. When they eat birds and bird eggs they are helping to control the bird population but also help to keep the fish population growing as some of the eggs they may eat could be those of water birds. The slough has luckily not been a victim of habitat fragmentation. Coming up to Six Mile Cypress Parkway there is a bridge that allows water, animals and foliage to pass under. This allows the water to continue on its way out to the rivers and ocean, while also allowing animals to breed in different gene pools so that they do not breed with their relatives, much like the panther population once Alligator Alley was built and cut off the Everglades from the rest of Florida.

Campus Trails and Sustainablity at FGCU

Sustainability at FGCU is shown by the way that they wisely use their resources and the natural resources that are able to grow naturally in Southwest Florida. During the field trip we discussed the use of cypress trees on campus and how they work with our waterways. We also discussed the use of native plants, buildings and machinery and how if affects labor and maintenance costs. The animals around campus were also discussed as a part of FGCU's sustainable development through the years. Everything sustainable at FGCU ties into the "What is sustainability?" chapter by Margaret Robertson in Sustainability Principles and Practice.

One way that FGCU practices sustainability is by planting cypress trees in areas that receive a fairly large amount of water and may hold it, this is because the trees will take in the water that the ground may not be able to hold at the time. These trees are more effective than paying for a sea wall, which also gives a little more resilience to the areas around it by giving animals a little more habitat. Robertson's resilience is about environments being able to withstand changes which works with the areas behind Whitaker that have undergone some changes with the new building being built.

 

The combination of native plants, how buildings are made and angled, and the types of machinery used affect Robertson's environment section of the triple bottom line. Environment is affected by the native plants around campus, all of the plants need little to no fertilization, and can go long periods without having to be watered, the fire bushes give insects and birds places to live but also provides food for them. The buildings affect the environment portion as well due to taking away habitats from animals. However, the way the buildings are build and placed there is a large amount of wind the is funneled between them, as in the picture below. The machinery, such as compacting trash and recycle bins, makes it impossible for animals to get into the trash, spreading it around and eating it.

The ospreys that live around campus and near the beaches use the lakes on campus as a feeding ground. These birds often nest in places like the monument at the main entrance to the school or in tall trees near bodies of water. This helps with the biodiversity and carrying capacity within the campus. Robertson mentions that carrying capacity could leave to an overshoot of the population, which for the fish in the lakes around campus this could be a major issue, however with osprey, alligators, and river otters around campus the fish population is kept in control.