‘I realized that I want to malama the ʻāina more often’

Through ongoing community outreach with local schools, Mālama Maunalua is working to educate haumana about healthy aquatic ecosystems and we’re always thrilled to hear feedback from the students. Following our most recent Educational Huki on Feb. 7, Kamehameha Middle School students were invited to share what they learned – here’s what they had to say:

Mahalo to all the people at Maunalua Bay for making this experience possible. I had so much fun and I hope I can do it again. I learned so many new things about watersheds such as we all live in one because it is from the mountains to the sea, another thing I learned was about how we have to be careful about how we handle invasive plants because a small piece can turn into a whole colony. In the future, I would like to see all the harmful invasive species gone. Yesterday to work towards my future goal I contributed to removing the harmful invasive seaweed such as the gorilla ogo, the prickly seaweed, and the black mudweed. Something that I will do to help myself and others is I will do my part to help the environment and not contribute to invasive species being brought here. We have to strive to keep all harmful invasive species away so our future generations will still have native species. ~ Gianna

Mahalo, I would like to thank everyone at Manalua bay who took the time to teach me all the manaʻo that I learned and giving me the experience of being able to help out the ʻāina. It was fun to be able to get into the water and take out the invasive algae like the gorilla ogo. Thanks to all the people who let us aloha ʻāina, now on I realized that I want to malama the ʻāina more often and do things the Hawaiians did. I realized the I should participate more in these cleanups, they are more fun than I expected. ~ Mālie

Thank you to Aunty Macy, Aunty Kiana, Aunty Pua, Uncle Jason, Uncle Pono and many others for helping and guiding us throughout out field trip to Kuliouou beach park. Mahalo to Aunty Pua for teaching us about water sheds and why its is important for us to keep out waters clean. Mahalo to Aunty Kiana for telling us what to do when we pull out the invasive plants. Also thanks for teaching us the different invasive plant species. Mahalo to Uncle Jason for telling us about your job and why it is important to have more people like you to protect our Hawaiian Islands. Mahalo to everyone else for teaching us lessons about our ʻāina. ~ Tommy

Click here to read more comments from the students on the Pū‘ulu Koa blog!

Next Educational Huki: March 16

Educational huki offer excellent placed-based learning opportunities for grade school students.

The huki take place monthly, with the next one scheduled for Friday, March 16.

Educators who would like to participate in an educational huki can contact volunteer@malamamaunalua.org.