Beyond the Trail:Exploring our Timucuan Parks and Preserves

Abstract: The UNF environmental center has been helping students live a life of sustainability along with educating students on what they can be doing to help the environment. Working with the UNF environmental center has been a great experience. I personally got to work with Felicia Boyd who is the program and outreach director of the Timucuan parks Foundation. As a student who is not a Jacksonville native, I was so surprised when I found out that there are so many parks here in the city of Jacksonville. After working with Felicia I have found a new appreciation for the city of Jacksonville. Not only is Jacksonville a place where I live, it a place of so much beauty and nature that I wouldn’t have known about without joining this program and working with Felicia. The projects that I have participated in have brought many people to new places here in the city of Jacksonville where students would not have gone before if it wasn’t for the events that they have attended. Not only are the parks beautiful places with so much wildlife, but there is also a history behind many of the parks here in the city of Jacksonville, for example, Fort Caroline and Kingsley Plantation. There is a story to be told when visiting a park and there is so much learning that can be done. Overall my time working with the Timucuan foundation was an amazing experience, having friends and other volunteers come out and see the parks and help preserve them was a great experience not only for me but for everyone that came. Friends that have come out to last week’s event have been talking about going back to the parks to help clean up and remove invasive plants on their own.