Sense of Place

    I currently live in North Lake Village on Florida Gulf Coast University’s campus.  In this community it is their goal to create a safe and ecologically friendly environment, which students can live in.  It is the goal of the dorm buildings to have a green design.  The dorms in North Lake are constructed to have an ecologically friendly roof.  Our shower heads have a restrictor on it to prevent too much water from being used.   
    Walking around the dorms you will see that there are recycle stations where students can try to separate items from their garbage, so that we do not fill up our landfills with materials that could be reusable.  At every laundry room we also have a school shuttle stop that provides transportation for students to campus so that carbon emissions are reduced.  At the center of North Lake there is a bus stop that students can use to go to Gulf Coast Town Center to take care of their shopping needs, while reducing their gas consumption. 
    Usually I do not see too many animals during the day, but you can see them almost every night.  Raccoons frequently wander around the dorms at night especially by the garbage cans, which is why we have a dumpster that has a lock code so that the animals cannot crawl into the trash and get stuck.  One night I was by the tikki hut on the lake and I saw an alligator among the alligator flag plant.  I always heard that there was one in the lake, but I never saw it until that night.  Sometimes if I’m driving by the nature trails I see a coyote or two, but they usually are more afraid of me and run away.  


http://www.fgcu.edu/Housing/AboutLOC.html
http://torontoist.com/2006/10/raccoon_rage.php