Diary of a Colloquium Instructor #6

Saturday, September 17, 2016

The only field trip semester that I had never been on before, was today's destination. We drove down to Fort Myers Beach to the Estero Island Historic Cottage and the Matanzas Pass Preserve. This was a lovely little journey into the history of the history of the island of Estero. There used to be a lifetime resident, named Jo, who would address the students and tell personal stories of her life growing up on Ft. Myers Beach. She has since aged into her nineties and moved off the island. She is not in good enough physical health to make the trip anymore. However, there was a wonderful docent who presented a slideshow and told us the history of Jo and her family. The museum is a quaint little cottage, an original structure built from cypress and Florida pine. Like many other historical structures, being inside it really places you back in time. Besides the rich family history and the timeline of the fishing and building in Estero, the structure itself was fascinating. The docent explained it was just the right type of structure to survive the hurricanes of South Florida, and the fact it's still standing is evidence she's right.

After our talk in the museum, we were guided by our student naturalist, Taylor, down the boardwalk through Matanzas Pass Preserve. It's similar to several other preserves in SW Florida, loaded with mangroves and their surrounding ecosystems. People seem to vastly underestimate the importance of the mangroves for filtering high winds and protecting land from hurricanes. On one of the lookouts, we saw nine-pointed starfish in the shallow water around the mangroves. While most of my students were fascinated, the naturephobe was "freaked out" because he thought it looked too much like a spider. It's funny, the mangrove crabs maybe, but the starfish... not so much. Besides we were several feet above it one raised boardwalk platform. Oh well. He's been trying. He said he felt better on this trip than the last two, because we were up on the boardwalk and it wasn't terribly hot. The was a breeze off the bay.

I had fun on the bus ride back, chatting it up with a few of my students. I got an earful from them about how much they aren't a fan of the textbook. I am really looking forward to their presentation this week. They are orchestrating some kind of debate. It should be entertaining and much more engaging for the class than another boring Powerpoint. The group is made up of some students who are very interested din the course content and seem very intelligent. I'm really looking forward to it.

Another field trip in the books.