Applied Geography formerly Rural Training Center, Thailand

Harvest Pond Urban-Nature Connection-Introduction

     This section of the Applied Geography for Sustainable Living (AppGeog) focuses on Harvest Pond in the Hayloft Cotttages community as an educational focal point to connect and/or reconnect people with Nature. Harvest Pond is a stormwater retention pond on private land in the municipality of Suwanee, GA. How people perceive the pond depends on their attitude and relationship to it: part of their community/home, part of the municipal stormwater utility infrastructure, an advertising piece, an eyesore, a freshwater wetland, swamp, mosquito source, etc.

     The Urban-Nature education focus uses the geographic systems model to view the pond. The overall tone will be factual, non-judgmental, inclusive, ecosystems approach. We will attempt to uncover the natural history of the pond. However, the reality is the original "natural" environment has evolved to the current situation of its status as an urban stormwater retention pond. Social, political, and economic extrnalities prevail and curtail some of the original natural factors influencing the "life" of Harvest Pond.

     This effort is a work in progress based on amater citizen science and curiosity. It is not intended to advocate any particular agenda or than to use the pond as a learning opportunity. The project purposefully receives not outside funding to avoid conflicts of interest. Efforts and activities are based on voluntary participation. This is a grassroots effort and anyone donating anything to the effort does so with no expectaion of a tax benefit or write-off as the effort is not official registered as anything. It is very much like a group of folks coming together to play baseball in a sand lot; very informal.

     There is not particular curriculum or agenda. Some of the general topics will probably include pond geography, geomorphology, hydrology, ecology, and a seasonal photo gallery patterned after the geographic systems model. The aim of this effort is to demonstrate the tagline of AppGeog: Geography may not change the world but it will change the way you see it.