Entry 10

Colloquium was not what I had expected it to be. I had heard so many negative comments made about the course that was a bit apprehensive coming into it. However, now I have completed the course, I can honestly say that I left with a much more positive aspect about the environment than at the beginning of the semester or what I had even expected to have had. I use to liter occasionally and I always felt a sense of uneasiness when doing so, but I noticed that throughout this semester I am much more conscious of it and I have stopped doing it all together. I have also noticed that I am much more aware of recycling not only while I am on campus but at home as well. There is one change in particular that I would make to the course and that would be having more fieldtrips that are much more engaging than simply following a tour guide around. I would also discard the State of the World assignments because I felt that much of it was busy work and the book reiterated much of the information that we have already been given either through lecture or fieldtrips. Although, A Land Remembered is not a book I would personally choose to read on my leisure time, out of all of the readings it was the one I enjoyed the most. The reason I enjoyed the book the most was because it was an easy read and it kept my attention for a longer period of time since it was based on a story as opposed to reading an article or text book. I did not like the readings from the Colloquium Reader very much. The information within the reader was relevant to the course but it was difficult material. I felt the quizzes did not reflect the proper grades throughout the readings because although I read the material I still answered questions incorrectly due to the fact that I did not understand the material in its entirety. I would suggest having more fun and engaging activities for the time that is spent within the classroom when going over the material besides simply talking about it. I believe that by having such activities more students would be willing to participate. I would also suggest in cutting out either the Corkscrew or the Matanzas Pass Preserve field trips because in my opinion, they were very repetitive of each other which caused me to get a bit bored with what the tour guides were saying. Overall I enjoyed the course very much and I would hope that my classmates did as well.