In our Backyard

The campus hike that we went on was very beneficial to me. Every day I pass by all these trees and never think to myself what kind are they or how did they get here or how they are kept so maintained?  But after visiting the nature trail it defiantly gave me a new perspective on things at FGCU.

Realizing that more than half of our land on Florida Gulf Coast is preserved and that we can never take it the trees away is a really interesting and neat fact. Not every school is like FGCU. I have been to other colleges and they look like little downtown areas. With the buildings so high and the concrete all around there is no trees in sight but at Florida Gulf Coast that is not the case.

We actually thrive on the fact that we do  have all this land and we have this special feature that can be offered to the students here. I have been at FGCU for 3 years now and never once have gone on the nature trail. I really was missing out. Seeing all the cypress trees and learning how they live and grow is something that was interesting to me.

Canopy fires was something new I have never heard of before. It is actually an uncontrolled fire that hops from tree to tree and burns everything in its way. It can’t be controlled because it spreads to fast because it can “hop” over from the top of  every tree. Millions of acres can be destroyed by this kind of fire.

Living next to the everglades where I use to live in Fort Lauderdale when there was a fire I didn’t think much of it. I thought of smoke and how smoking it would be in the morning or how all the bugs would be stuck to my car but I never really thought about the devastation that a fire can produce. If I can recall correctly we had a fire at FGCU  couple of years ago and it burnt down a lot of trees. Imagine FGCU without trees I really would not think of it has FGCU anymore because I feel FGCU is so eco-friendly if we did not have it we would lose our character.

I never realized how much I took the trees and the nature trail for granted. It is a beautiful trail and you can see some amazing things. Yes you might get a little muddy but what’s not fun about that? Anyways, just after taking that trail that was in our backyard it made me see how nice and pretty our campus really is.