HOMESTEAD, Florida: Everglades National Park is proud to present a Florida International University (FIU) Honors College Exhibit, “Beginning to End?" at the Coe Visitor Center Gallery, April 4 - April 25, 2014. The Honors College at FIU offers a four-year program for their most talented and outstanding students. These courses emphasize a broad liberal arts focus and an interdisciplinary approach to learning. Since September 2013, a group of students chose to meet all day every other Friday in various habitats and locations in Everglades National Park. Classes involved discussing literature on location, identification of flora and fauna, as well as hiking, biking, canoeing, and slough slogging, while accompanied by their professors, park rangers, artists, and scientists. Students also participated in a service activity to benefit the park, visited the historic Nike Missile Base, and restoration sites located in the park.
During spring semester, these students from various majors and disciplines developed projects to be presented as a poster session at the Coe Visitor Center Gallery. Students chose topics as diverse as Everglades-related advertising, the relationship between Native Americans of the Everglades and their environment, and the consequences of visitor interaction with animals. Some suggest off the beaten track tours for visitors or present unusual photographs of destruction in the Everglades. Others explain technological innovations of the drainage period (early 1900's) and of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). Also included are a cost/benefit analysis of CERP, the consequences of climate change, and the history and impact of the Hoover Dike and the Tamiami Trail. Finally, one project demonstrates mathematically why the Everglades is beautiful!
This creative exhibit seeks to complement the existing Coe Visitor displays while encouraging visitors to think about the importance of the Everglades and the many connections that tie us all to this unique ecosystem - in both expected and unexpected ways.
WHAT: Florida International University (FIU) Honors College Exhibit, “Beginning to End?"
WHEN: April 4 - April 25, 2014.
WHERE: The Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center Gallery
The Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center is located at 40001 State Road 9336, approximately 10 miles southwest of Florida City. Visitor center hours are8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily and admission is free. Beginning Sunday, April 13, the hours will change to 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. For information and directions to the park call (305) 242-7700.
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
