It gave me a sense of just how small we really are compared to the environment around us and just how much we affect it. Our guide began explaining to us what their job is. He explained just how important speeding up the process of restoration is and just how long it would take. The park is roughly 3500 acres of trees, brush, bogs and lakes. When walking through, I realized the beauty of this place. It was quiet, serene and seemed to be full of life. We all walked in single file lines and split into two groups. Splitting into these two groups allowed us to maximize our time and do more work. The group I was in first started with planting/scattering seeds and watering trees which had already been planted. After we had planted scattered and water we moved on to removing invasive species of brush and grasses. Working hard as a group we were able to remove a lot of these invasive species. What shocked me was that we worked for about an hour or so and were only able to do so much. We were also about 30 students who were constantly working, and we barely removed anything. It really just once again showed how little we are compared to our environments. This field trip was definitely necessary in showing what restoring our environment is about. Seeing what the goals are for glacial park and what the team working there had accomplished is great. It showed us just how much more can be accomplished when trying to restore an environment back to its normal state. We were explained to how gophers had started migrating back since the restoration started. This is a great sign as ecologists know that what they've been doing is right. As humans, we have built and expanded and destroyed what was we once had. Now we realize just how important our environment is to us and our survival. Restoration ecology is extremely important and it will save us, there are no negative sides to it.
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