Field Trip #2: Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

The second field trip that our class attended was to the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary located in Naples, Florida. The Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary was founded by the Audubon society who realized the importance of preserving the land. It is the only area in Florida that has not changed dramatically since people began colonizing Florida. The government at that time built man-made waterways throughout south Florida to remove the excess water in preparation of future civilizations. This dramatically affected Florida and we are currently working to reverse the damage and improve the future.

We began our tour in The Living Machine. It is an area of various plants growing near the public restrooms. Our tour guide explained that the facility recycles the waste water from the restrooms to water the plants in the enclosure. It is passed through pipes and held in large tanks with bacteria to break down the water then it is used to water the plants. The water that is left unused, is chlorinated and then un-chlorinated and recycled back to the restrooms to be used in the toilets. I thought that this was very interesting! The money that the facility is saving everyday just from The Living Machine is immense.

Continuing our tour, we walked on the boardwalk through the different environments represented in the sanctuary. We stopped periodically to discuss facts and interesting things about the environments that we walked through. The first area we saw was the pine forest uplands. We stopped and discussed the fire that had been through the area and how we could see
the effects on the remaining trees. (These pictures are of burnt palm trees visible from the boardwalk.)

We saw an area of crushed plants in the marshy area of the swamp which our tour guide explained to us was most likely made by an alligator. The next time we stopped, we were able to see three specific environments. The pine forest uplands, the wetlands, and the cypress forest. (photo on bottom)

We continued our tour and discussed alligator flags/fire flags, lettuce lakes, Florida panthers, spiders, and the interesting facts of the boardwalk. The boardwalk was made of Brazilian wood from the Amazon forest. It would last longer than the cypress trees they could have made it from, but they would be using the tree they were in the process of saving. Also, in building the boardwalk, the trees were taken into account. If a tree was in the way, they built around it instead of cut it down. I thought that this was really interesting. And each year they cut the hole around the tree bigger to allow it to grow naturally.

I really enjoyed this field trip! The weather was decent and the environment we were able to learn about was very interesting. Being able to actually see and touch the environments that we read about and talk about for this course is extremely helpful in creating understanding.