Trip to ECHO

ECHO stands for Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization and they are located in Fort Myers, Florida. Thier main focus is creating new and inovative ways to help third world contries learn to sustain their own agriculture. They take a look into the climate that these countries live in and find an easier and more successful way to grow crops. Feeding someone is good but to teach them to feed themselves is even better so they have people that travel to these countries and live there a whole year learning about the ways that the native people live and then they try their best to make changes when needed. The field trip that we took was a tour of some of the demos that are going on in different countries. For example, the first thing our tour guide showed us was a duck pen located above a tilapia lake so that there is a cycle that supports both the ducks and the tilapia making them coexist. There were several other neat things that he showed us that seemed very simple to change but makes perfect sense if you live in a harsh climate that makes harvesting difficult such as living in a city where there are hundreds of rooftops. They have ways to grow crops using recycled materials to plant plants on rooftops. All of their work is extremely relevant to countries that need it. Their system are designed for specific climates so not all of the displays that we saw work everywhere. It takes alot of research and testing to see if their designs will succeed or fail when a new countries comes to them for help. Even though it is very interesting to learn about I would not however want to work with this type of work. Planting and harvesting crops is not the work that I would like to do for my service learning in this class. I would much rather work with animals such as the Shy Wolf Sanctuary in Naples. I have a soft heart for animals so for me, animals is where I would rather focus my energy on helping rather than people in far away countries.