Nature Experience Project

Nature Experience Project

For this project, I went to a park in my neighborhood with a small forest, a hiking trail, and a pond. I went to the park in the morning, a time I knew that there would be just a few people, in contrast to noon and afternoon when there were a lot of people. The first thing I noticed as soon as I walked into the park was how different the atmosphere was from the city. Even if there was noise from the busy city life, something about the air felt fresh and cooler. There was more green all around, more birds and insect noises. I am mostly used to only dog and cat noises back at home. I chose to sit on a bench close to and facing the pond. The first thing that caught my eye as soon as I sat down was a gaggle of geese floating around in the pond.

While watching the geese, I noticed they were floating on a small part of the pond because some evasive weed species covered a large portion of the pond. And even though the assignment required that I remain in a sort of meditative state, I couldn’t stop thinking about how that weed would eventually take over the pond. This would also damage other species in the pond, so I found a long, branched stick and pulled out as much as possible. While this is not the most effective way to get rid of floating pondweed, it made me feel better that it would take longer for the weeds to grow back up again than if I had left them as is. Going back to my seat, I also noticed a long colony of ants on the next bench, moving up the bench towards what looked like smudged ice cream and down into the grass behind the seat. The tiny insects were so busy and fast, yet so quiet. I sat there for a few more minutes to recover the time I lost while pulling out the pondweed, then got up and went home afterwards.

Reflecting on my thoughts while at the park, two thoughts stood out the most. One is the black swan theory, which I remembered because the gaggle of geese had a few black geese that reminded me of black swans. The black swan theory explains rare and unpredictable events that occur as a surprise and have a huge impact on the world or society. This term is linked to the discovery of black swans in the seventeenth century, prior to which only white swans were known to exist (Frayer, 2019). This discovery changed and upended every understanding people had of swans. Taking the literal meaning of the theory and taking into account that approximately eighty per cent of the ocean, which occupies seventy per cent of the earth, is unexplored, the number of “black swans” of unknown and known species is mind-blowing. In addition, the pyramid of dominant species on earth will most likely be disrupted when these “black swan” species are discovered. In addition, with the unknown impacts that humans have on nature, we may think that we know the consequences, but our predictions could be wrong, and we end up with black swan events, which will disrupt Earth in the most severe ways possible.

Secondly, I thought about how humans are similar to other species in nature, even though we like to believe we are the most intelligent species. For example, ants are some of the most social animals because for a colony to survive, each ant has to have good communication skills through the use of pheromones (David Morgan, 2009). Notably, ants have over fifteen pheromones that serve different functions, such as signifying food, danger, and their colony’s location, among others. The same applies to humans, like putting stop or slow down signs on a road or danger signs in hazardous zones. These and many other similarities between humans and other species are what makes humans part of nature. Nature, by definition, is the products and features of the natural world, for instance, plants, landscapes, and animals. All species, including humans, heavily depend on nature for everyday life. In addition, by using a metaphor of the body as nature and humans as a part of that body, like the wrist, I can explain how humans are part of nature. Suppose the wrist was separated from the body; the body can easily survive; however, the wrist cannot survive on its own. Humans depend on nature to live, and so does every other species. Just because humans have developed multiple ways to modify the natural world to serve their needs does not mean that they are not part of the natural world. Lastly, it is worth mentioning how much this course has helped me open my eyes to the environment around me and notice things I would never have given a second thought.

References

David Morgan, E. (2009). Trail Pheromones of Ants. Physiological Entomology, 34(1), 1-17.

Frayer, D. W. (2019). Neandertals and the Black Swan. PaleoAnthropology, 2019, 350-361.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

Response posts to fellow students (optional) are due by Day 7. Prior to beginning this assignment, please listen to the podcast, ‘The Sound of a Snail’: A Patient’s Greatest Comfort (Links to an external site.).

Nature Experience Project

Throughout this course, we have been exploring environmental issues and challenges, such as fresh drinking water scarcity and biodiversity loss. But what would our own lives be like without nature? How might nature experiences benefit us? In this activity, you are asked to spend time in nature, record your experiences, and then share your reflections with the class. This project is due on Day 3 (Thursday) of this week. Incorporate feedback that you have received and complete the sections below.

Note: You will not be able to view others’ projects until you have posted your own.

Go Outdoors: Find a place outside where you can be in nature for at least one hour. This could be a national, state, or local park, a city square with trees and gardens, an old cemetery, or even your own backyard. Be creative. For those of you who may think there is no nature whatsoever around you or you will not have the opportunity to get out into nature, the podcast ‘The Sound of a Snail’: A Patient’s Greatest Comfort (Links to an external site.) will give you get a sense of creative ways to complete this assignment, particularly if you are living in a highly urbanized setting.

Observe: Once you are outdoors, choose a comfortable spot where you can stand or sit quietly for at least 1 hour of uninterrupted solitude. Turn off all electronic devices. Quietly take in your surroundings. What do you notice? Use your senses of sight, hearing, smell, and feeling to take the world in. Be as still and quiet as you can.

Please note: You should plan to complete this step no later than Week 4.

Write: Either while you are outdoors or as soon after your return as you can, set aside at least a half an hour of uninterrupted time to write about your nature experience. It should include both what you directly experienced during your time outdoors and your feelings and reflections on the experience itself. In your writing, consider this question: Are human beings a part of nature, or apart from it?

Please note: You should plan to complete this step no later than Week 4. It is not necessary to share your journal work with anyone, but taking the time to write about your experience will provide you with valuable raw material for the next step.

Create: Choose a creative means of sharing your nature experience, and what you learned from it, with the class. This could take the form of a series of photographs with captions, a poem, a song, a brief personal essay, a work of art, the design for a board game, a video of some kind, or any other creative avenue you can think of. The work should be entirely your own product.

Please note: You should plan to start on this step by Week 4 at the latest.

Share: Share your completed creative project with the class by uploading it to the Nature Experience Project discussion board by Day 3 of this week. If your work is entirely visual or auditory (e.g., fine art, photography, music, etc.), please include a brief statement of 100 to 200 words that (1) relates your work back to your original nature experience; and (2) relates your work to the question of whether you feel you are a part of nature or apart from it. Upload visual or auditory content to an online repository that allows you to share a link to the content with others. Follow the directions for uploading your video to YouTube (Android Upload videos (Links to an external site.); iPhone/iPad Upload videos (Links to an external site.)) or other web-based video platform to obtain the link to share with others. Audio can be recorded or uploaded in Vocaroo (See Vocaroo’s (Links to an external site.) for more information).

Comment: Feel free to share your thoughts about other students’ work. Make sure to communicate in a respectful and positive way. This step is optional, but encouraged.