Douglas

The way Douglas describes the everglades makes me really want to travel there. Even the ways people described it negatively, “…vast, miasmic swamps, poisonous lagoons, huge dismal marshes without outlet, a rotting, shallow, inland sea, or labyrinths of dark trees hung and looped about with snakes and dripping mosses , malignant with tropical fevers and malarias, evil to the white man,” it’s just BEGGING to be explored! It just blows my mind that this wonder of nature, with no equal on the planet, is just sitting in our back yard!

I’ve never been there before, but I want to go as soon as I can. I’ve heard a lot about invasive snakes damaging the ecosystem and that some people are actually hunting the snakes. THAT would be one hell of a summer! I’d love to do that for a month just to see what it would be like. I can’t say I have the same passion as the author, but I sure would love to spend some time there (certainly not permanently).

http://news.ifas.ufl.edu/2006/06/judas-snakes-help-researchers-removes-pythons-from-the-everglades/

I heard an interesting story from one of my engineering professors recently regarding the everglades. I'm not certain if it's true or not. I trust that it is, however I've not done any significant, in-depth research on the matter. Apperently during either WW2 or the cold war, the US navy was annoyed that they had to travel all the way around the florida peninsula to get from 1 side to the other for training purposes. So they proposed the digging of a canal, similar to the Pannama Canal, that cuts through the state for more easy travel for their ships. Well, they dug the canal, and were just about ready to bust open the flood gates to fill it with water, when someone from the US Army Corps of Engineers came running in to stop them. If they were to create this canal. It would have caused seawater to flow south into the everglades and completely destroy the ecosystem. I don't know if that story is true or not, but it's scary nonetheless.

The way this author describes the Everglades makes me feel like I was there. It's an eerie paradox the way she calls the everglades "unchangeable changing."

Overall I'd say this is the most enjoyable reading of the three we've had so far. It's not preachy, it's descriptive. It's not repudiative, it's beautiful.

Leopold

Land is still property.
Leopold really likes to use big words to make him sound smart.
"That man is, in fact, only a member of a biotic team is shown by an ecological interpretation of history. Many historical events, hitherto explained soupy in terms of human enterprise, were actually biotic interactions between people and land."

I understand what this excerpt from his book is trying to say, that men should appreciate and care about the land, and that poisoning it, like we do every day, is like poisoning ourselves. I get it.

"Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land." Leopold 63
 I like this quote and am going to use it when necessary.

This excerpt heavily emphasizes people and land over profit. Which I support as well.

"it is only in recent years that we hear the more honest argument that predators are members of the community, and that no special interest has the right to exterminate them for the sake of a benefit, real or fancied, to itself." Leopold 65
This quote points out that there are bigger things in play than predators eating prey for the greater good of humans. The whole system is connected together. We can't just look at one aspect of an ecosystem and decided that it's beneficial for us. Just like we can't just decide that it's not beneficial to us, and immediately irradiate the problem. We have to look at the big picture.

"...in fact, much higher education seems deliberately to avoid ecological concepts." Leopold 76
Gonna have to disagree with you there, Al. If by higher education, he means universities, I'd say that in this day and age, Universities are doing far better in educating their students about the importance of maintaining a balanced ecosystem. Take, for example, this class.

http://www.china.org.cn/english/environment/238666.htm

Louv

Currently, the United States educational system is in a transitional phase. It is trying to have the best of both worlds: high test scores, and active students. Students can't read while running, and they can't run while reading. Louv describes where the educational system was before: Little time outdoors as students focus strictly on their studies. This is apparent in the quote: "many districts considered recess a waste of potential academic time or too risky"
Economists and doctors have proven that an active lifestyle in children and adults is not only beneficial for a child's physical health, but also for their mental health. Releasing energy in the outdoors can help kids focus better in class. Louv explains how useful a therapy nature is for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). I personally think that the over-diagnosis of ADD and ADHD is a terrible burden on society. Overmedication of children will, in my opinion, cause severely negative long-term effects on not only the children themselves, but on a societal level; as is mentioned in the text, "Critics charger that often-perscribed medications....are over prescribed, perhaps as much as 10 to 40 percent of the time."
The text cites that the cause of this over-prescription is due to rapid urbanization. Children in cities don't have as much ability to release energy, causing hyperactivity. I think that this is one small aspect, but I'd consider the real culprit of overmedication and overprescribing ADHD is that adults refuse to let children be children. They want to run around, they want to  be free from the constraints of a classroom.
Further reading, however, emphasizes data that does link thinking more clearly and being in nature, so I suppose I was incorrect in assuming no link... "...those who had walked in the nature preserved performed better than the other participants on a standard proofreading task. They also reported more positive emotions and less anger." I personally don't have ADHD, and I personally find more solace in front of a computer screen than in front of a pristine lake. But maybe that's just me. Now that I think about it, it may have been my prevalence to go outside and play around in the woods next to my house that kept me from being diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. But that's just anecdotal evidence.

Journal Guideline

 Your journal entries are an opportunity for reflection on your own thoughts, beliefs, questions, and/or concerns regarding a particular topic, issue, or experience. It is a reflection of your learning in the course and a record of your journey through the semester, not a diary. Each journal entry should reflect a minimum of 30-60 minutes of work. The ultimate purpose of the journal entries is to provide you with a medium to express your ideas and opinions and to facilitate an understanding of the material and experiences in a way that is meaningful to you. Each entry is worth 10 points toward your final journal grade which is worth 10% of your course grade.

Guidelines:

Your journal will take the form of an online blog.  Blogger is free and easy to use, but any will be acceptable as long as you can submit a URL and I can access it.

Each entry must reflect 30-60 minutes of effort and should include appropriate and related photos, drawings, video clips, and links, anything that you wish to include.  Be creative!  This is an expression of your thoughts as you move through the course!

For entries related to reading assignments, select 3-4 quotes that strike you in some way and reflect on them.  Be detailed and give reasoning behind your thoughts. For example – don’t just say “This quote is dumb!” Tell me why it is dumb. Be prepared to discuss these quotes as a group in class.

All work reflected in the journal should be in your own words.  If you use other authors’ work you need to properly cite and reference the information including photos, graphics and/external links (photos by taken by you will need to be referenced as well).

You need to use correct grammar and spelling, using complete sentences, with correct English - "you" not "u".

Journal entries are due before class begins each week.  You will submit a URL to your blog in Canvas.

You will be graded on the richness of your ideas and discussion, not on your opinions.