Lessons
Natural History
Formation of the Hawaiian Islands/Native Species
"It was very interesting to learn about Hawai'i's natural creation. Our plate is moving over a stationary hot spots. The lava is pumping out islands and the islands are moving west creating an island chain. Millions of years ago Kauai and all the following islands were where Hawai'i Island is today"
-Taylor Delorm-Doane
"Wings, waves, winds are the three ways of making the island or place grow all kinds of different plants and trees."
-Blasea Balancio-Sadamaru
"The Wailuku river has 300,000 gallons of water flowing through everyday making it Hawai'is largest river."
-Kainalu Kunewa
Mauka & Forest
Native Plants and Native Forest Ecology
"Koa is in the Legume family, which means that it can basically produce its own food and fertilizer by converting a previously unusable yet remarkably abundant form of nitrogen into a usable form for the plant." -Annie Williamson
"Going up to Mauna Kea, I learned a lot about the loss of forest habitats and the declining species of birds. A group called the Mauna Kea Watershed Alliance (MKWA) is trying to restore the forests former diversity to eventually restore the abundance of Hawaiian birds. Learning from Uncle Cheyenne who is the Po'o for MKWA and he shared with us about the foreigners who came to Hawaiʻi and burned down the forests for cattle pastures. Although this might have been good back then, today Hawaiian plants are sparse. To help restore the forest, we were given the opportunity to plant baby Iliahi under Mamane trees. As we planted these Iliahi plants, each of us touched it, putting our mana and aloha into the plant making it strong and abundant.” -MahinaTadaki
Watershed-Ahupua'a
"Water quality would show more nutrients if a river flowed through a forest giving off a nutrient property and flowing to the ocean will make it brackish at appearance, hence the surrounding environment has a big impact on our water resources." -Taylor Delorm-Doane
"The aweoaweo plant smells like fish when it's crushed, showing a relationship between the ocean & the mountain." -
"After rain falls up mauka it travels underground and is released along the coast of the Island. It travels down thru soil, rock and collects under Island as ground water." -Blasea Balancio-Sadamaru
Symbiotic Relationships
"Symbiosis is the interaction of species that can be characterized into these three categories. Mutualism, Commensalism, Parasitism.
Mutualism: When both species benefit from each other.
Ex. ‘I’iwi and Lehua
Commensalism: When one species benefits from the other but the other is not harmed.
Ex. Fern and Tree
Parasitism: When one species benefits from the other and the other is harmed.
Ex. Varroa Mite and Honeybee" -Malie Nahoolewa
Biomes
"Because there is little to no genetic diversity among the gorse crop, there is potential in the scientific field to engineer a disease unique to the gorse population to wipe out this heavily invasive species." -Annie Williamson
Plant-Soil-Microbes
"Soil is the word you use to describe the byproduct of parent material and organic matter in large mass while dirt is the word for soil which has been removed from the body of soil. For example, you would call the stuff under your fingernails dirt, not soil." -Annie Williamson
"pH acidity vs. alkalinity measures the presence of H+ ions in the soil, water, and even food. In the soil, certain nutrients are only available to plants in a certain pH range. Luckily, Hawai’i’s soils are slightly acidic, giving it an ideal pH of 6.21- 6.8, which makes all nutrients available to the plants. -Annie Williamson
Water Quality & Properties
Wailuku-K-PUA's
" Water quality changes throughout location. For instance, the water qualities in the Uka & Kai regions of the Wailuku are drastically different." -Taylor Delorm-Doane
Wailoa
"I learned that the YSI will measure salinity. Salinity would tell us how much salt is in the water when we put the probe in the water. "
-Makanaalaoha Angay
Lehia
"It was interesting to see the difference between the species at the tide pools vs. the ocean."
-Ilikea Adams
Hilo One
"Copepods, small green phytoplankton found in the ocean, are the most abundant organism on the planet."
-Annie Williamson
"Turbidity can be defined as the clarity of water. In areas like the Hilo Bay, areas that are fairly murky, the water is very turbid and restricts the amount of sunlight reaching microorganisms. Because such microorganisms produce oxygen, when the water is murky either from runoff or pollution, there is less dissolved oxygen in the water which can eventually suffocate fish. This is why there is a higher count of dissolved oxygen in waters further from shore, and also demonstrates the importance of keeping our oceans clean."
-Annie Williamson
"For every fish in the sea, we can trace through their food web down to microscopic phyto-plankton and, ultimately, to the solar energy consumed at that microscopic level and we can calculate the amount of sunlight used to produce that fish."
-Annie Williamson
"Anthropogenic” is a word used to describe phenomena that are human-caused. "
-Annie Williamson
Kiholo
"How do you find your home? Our fish, the native Hawaiian ‘ama’ama, can find their way through the fierce waves, schools of foreign fish and groups of fishermen all the way back to the Kiholo loko I’a. The techniques they use are taste and smell. That’s how they find home."
-Kainalu Kunewa
"At Kiholo we learned about Pono fishing and how to preserve our fish populations by only taking what you need and being educated about each type of fish. We learned that it takes eighty-seven of 14" inch Omilu to produce as many off spring as just one 6 year old Omilu. It is also scientifically proven that the babies from the bigger fish are healthier and are more likely to survive than the babies from the smaller fish. So you should leave some of the bigger fish in the ocean so that they can reproduce and rebuild their population, allowing the fish to be around for generations to come."
-Makanahele Emmsley
Waiopae
" The study of coral is important because of the invasive species keep eating at the coral their would no longer be native hawiian coral in Hawaii." -Makanaaloha Angay
"Natural and anthroprogenic changes in water property, quality and temperature can have negative effects on coral, the result of this is called coral bleaching." -Ilikea Adams
Hale O Lono
"Lono is the uncle of Pele and the son of Keawenuikekahi'ali'ikamoku and Lonoma'aikanaka. Lonoma'aikanaka. is also known as Kalanainui'iamamo. The kumulipo was composed for Lono, When Lono was born teh Kumulipo was chanted to him. Hal o Lono was a pond that was built by Lono's father for Lono. A pond where he could bathe and fish."
-Malie Nahoolewa
"Aunty Roxie shared that what happens on the Mauna can affect her fish pond."
-Makanaaloha Angay
"We were taught about a Hawaiian thought mentality that is very different from modern & common thought. We do not do things for ourselves, we do it for the seven generations to come."
-Taylor Delorm-Doane
"I liked how Aunty Roxy said that being Hawaiian is not east and it is a big Kuleana. She made it clear that it's not just about you in Hawaiian culture, they thinkof everything for the next seven generations to come."
-Makanahele Emmsley
Wao Kanaka
Human Relationship to the Aina
"I learned that there are many kapu's when ku'i pa'i'ai. Like when you are not watching your board you need to put ti leaf or you pohaku on it. Your board needs to be clean when ku'i the pa'i 'ai. You need to have one hand clean at all times." -Malie Nahoolewa
"I did not know that there are many different kinds and colors of kalo, some are green, purple, blue and even green." -Blasea Balancio-Sadamaru
"There are people that have sweet hands which means they can make their poi stay good for longer than other people,"
-Ilikea Adams
"I realized the wealth of information we have at our fingertips even in remote places as Uncle 'Ianuali Kaonohiokalanikoholua was talking about how we learned his trade from people in remote forests." -Annie Williamson
"I liked how uncle and I was talking about how the youth needs to learn to be respectful and sustainable, so that they can survive with what we have here on our aina." - Makanahele Emmsley
"Learning from Uncle 'Ianuali Kaonohiokalanikoholua, I learned a lot about the importance of a single person, and how as an individual we can help to aloha the aina in a huge way."
-Mahina Tadaki
