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Community Engagement and Outreach Scholarship Mini Grant Projects
Awarded and Completed

2015 Projects
Project Name- Nā Wahi Kupuna
Project Area- Education (P-20)
HSHK Faculty- Kapā Oliveira
Email- katrinaa@hawaii.edu
Community Partner- ʻAoʻao o nā Loko Iʻa o Maui
Community website- http://mauifishpond.com
Nā Wahi Kupuna documents oral histories on the island of Maui to preserve our knowledge of the place names, histories, and traditional Kanaka fishing and gathering practices along Maui’s coastline. Kūpuna and other expert cultural practitioners have been interviewed and videotaped as they discuss their connection to and recollection of various Maui wahi pana as well as the oral histories associated with these places.
Project Name- Movement-building for Ea: A political leadership training workshop
Project Area- Education (P-20)
HSHK Faculty- Konia Freitas
Email- antoinet@hawaii.edu
Community Partner- Ke Ea Hawaiʻi charter school student governance council
Community website- https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ke-Ea-Hawaii/519037108170216?fref=nf
Movement-building for Ea: A political leadership training workshop brings UHM faculty and graduate students together with high school students and teachers from Hawaiian culture-based charter schools on various islands. The focus of the two-day workshop is to expand the youth’s capacity to engage in political issues that they deem important to their communities. The participating ʻōpio are elected leaders from eight different Hawaiian charter schools, and together they form an inter-scholastic council called Ke Ea Hawaiʻi. 
Project Name- Molokaʻi Pule Oʻo: The Nation Within
Project Area- Education (P-20)
HSHK Faculty- Ron Williams
Email- ronaldwi@hawaii.edu
Community Partner- Hui o Kuapā
Community website- https://www.facebook.com/huiokuapa
Molokaʻi Pule Oʻo: The Nation Within addresses pertinent issues in the Molokaʻi community, both immediate and long-term. The Hawaiʻinuiākea faculty worked with Hui o Kuapā and Molokaʻi High School kumu to equip, train, and excite students to excel in both a specific school project and the larger project of life-long learning. The project challenged each individual student to “look within” – both community and self – to find the vital knowledge that links struggles of today with profound knowledge from the past. It inspired haumāna to remember what they have inside of them and the tools that their one hānau – Molokaʻi Pule Oʻo – offers them. It asked them to be the ones who write the histories of their nation that their moʻopuna will read.

Engaged Scholars Research Grant Program

2015 Project Name- Mālama Kai Hohonu: Creating a Working Group on Deep Seabed Mining in the Pacific
HSHK Faculty- Jon Osorio
Email- osorio@hawaii.edu
Seabed mining will have long-lasting environmental impacts on ocean and connected ecosystem health. The sea-bed mining site that will most affect Hawaiʻi lies outside of state and federal jurisdiction. Extra-governmental solutions are needed. This project builds alliances to ensure this bio-diverse and fragile habitat is protected. The project also educates stakeholders so they can take a greater role in facilitating protection. Outcomes include policy proposals and a better informed citizenry.

Ka Papa Loʻi o Voyager

A community partnership to develop Hawaiian science curriculum at Māhuahua ‘Ai o Hoi, a 200-acre mauka-to-makai area in Heʻeia that includes loʻi kalo and loko iʻa.

Project lead: Hokulani ʻAikau
Objective: To provide Hawaiʻi ‘ohana and ‘ōpio with content that is culturally relevant and appropriate in a learning environment that challenges the classroom-centrism of Western school systems; to develop a 3rd grade science curriculum that utilizes Hawaiian ecological knowledge and provides haumāna with hands-on ‘āina-based learning at Māhuahua that meets Hawai’i content area standards for science. Includes:

  • Safe access to the wetland areas to engage in place-based learning opportunities and activities that increases students’ cultural, historical, and ecological knowledge about Heʻeia ahupuaʻa and Māhuahua ‘Ai a Hoi.
  • Culturally relevant, hands-on learning opportunities to increase enthusiasm about science, technology, engineering, and math.
  • Understanding of how Hawaiian ecological knowledge builds on the interconnectedness of science, technology, and society
  • Research that focuses on: the value of water in a Hawaiian cultural context; how water moves through the ahupuaʻa; the ecological significance of the loʻi system for downstream systems; and the impact of restoration on native and non-native plants and animals who live in the wetland.
  • Opportunities that will inspire haumāna to become advocates for their community, their ahupuaʻa, Hawaiʻi nei, and the world.

Community partners:  Kelly Ralleta, Voyager Public Charter School (3rd grade kumu)Nathan Dube, Kākoʻo ‘Ōiwi (a non-profit working to restore loʻi kalo along Koʻolau coast)Māhuahua ‘Ai o Hoi.
Communities served:  3rd grade students at Voyager Public Charter School; Māhuahua ʻAi o Hoi and their ongoing restoration efforts; the greater community as the project creates learners who are aware and respectful of the natural environment.
Benefits to communities served:  Integrating Hawaiian scientific knowledge and cultural practices into the curriculum will positively impact students’ school engagement which will translate into greater engagement with STEM subjects; “…as haumāna see the relevance of STEM for their community, they will also be advocates for the places they live…” Māhuahua ʻAi o Hoi receives kōkua in their ongoing restoration efforts of the Heʻeia wetlands; Voyager kūmu have curriculum created.

Waiʻanae Mālama ʻĀina Field School at Nānākuli

A pilot summer school course for Nānākuli High & Intermediate middle school students entering grades 8 and 9 in the 2013-2014 school year. The primary goal of the course is to strengthen students’ core skills in science, math, and English/language arts by connecting them to the ‘āina and their culture. In doing so, the program engages students in learning and school so that they will be successful learners and contributors to their community, and will begin to understand the role of the 21st century konohiki. Students explore college and career paths and develop contacts with potential employers.

Nānākuli Mākua Series

This program connects Waiʻanae Coast families to a diverse set of learning opportunities through a unique collaboration with HSHK, INPEACE Keiki Steps Program, and the Kamehameha Schools Ka Pua Project. The learning exchange is a sustainable series of workshops which create opportunities for families to reinforce and raise consciousness around Hawaiian language, culture, and identity. Each community session is designed to address the short-term goal of building relationships among families to strengthen resilience and increase interest in education as well as the long-term goal of expanding capacity for critical analysis and engagement in social, political, and educational advocacy that impacts the landscape of their community.

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