What knowledge can you share?

[csgray]

Actually most of my students live mauka, way, way, mauka in fact; some of them spend so little time in the water that I had kids (born and raised on this island) in my ocean studies class last year who did not know how to swim! The first class I took to Kapoho, not a single student had ever been there. Most of my students have only been there with my classes. My students' knowledge of the ocean and what lives in it is all over the place, with most of their knowledge based on the fishes they catch and eat, if they and their families fish; many don't. Generally their understanding of the natural environment as an interactive ecosystem is really limited. The local kids who have grandparents who lived on the land and harvested the gifts of the sea and land tend to have more in depth knowledge of the relationships between the different plants and animals than do the more urbanized kids, but they still have big gaps in their understanding.

The other thing is not all kids in Hawaii's schools are Hawaiian, part Hawaiian or even "local" so students have a wide range of knowledge and ignorance about the plants and animals of Hawaii, which is why I am teaching this class called "Plants and Animals of Hawaii." It is not a "Hawaiian seafaring" class or "Hawaiian boat building" or even Hawaii's marine ecosystems, it is Plants and Animals of Hawaii, which includes the fishes, marine mammals and reptiles, seaweeds, algae, and sea birds. It also includes the land plants and animals from the ocean shores and intertidal zones to the highest peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, along with everything in between. This island is a bio geographers dream, with diverse ecosystems and micro climates in close proximity to each other. At the same time it is a naturalist's worst nightmare, with species going extinct right and left, and a recent tradition of large scale mono crop agriculture.

My goal is for these kids to grasp 3 main things:
Which were the indigenous plants and animals, how did they get here, and how they changed and adapted after they got here.
Which plants and animals were brought by the Polynesians and how did they use them.
Finally, why does Hawaii have more non-native invasive species and more endangered species than anywhere else on the planet, and what does that mean for the ecosystems of Hawaii.

Along the way we will learn to identify a bunch of Hawaii's Plants and Animals, spend time in different ecosystems and climate zones observing plants and animals, and get kids out of the classroom and into the natural world as much as I can manage. Each environment is different and I hope to find guest contributors to help us learn about each one. I've only been here for two and a half years, I've been learning as much as I can, but this is a huge subject and I am hoping for some outside "experts" to fill in my gaps. I am good on the big picture and ecosystem dynamics, but I still need help on more specific knowledge of the plants and animals, which is why I turned to puna web for help.

Mahalo to all who have stepped forward, and I am still wondering if Carey and Andrew will be at scuba Sunday this weekend.
Aloha

p.s. We went out to End of the Road tonight and watched Pele's fireworks, awesome in the truest meaning of the word. I am so lucky to get to teach natural science here!!!!

Carol