When kindergarteners are collaborating to build bridges, you know the future of education is bright. Long before students in the schools and districts featured here have a chance to ask “What difference does this make?” or “When will I need to know this?” they’re out on a boat gathering samples, investigating why a family member suffers headaches, outside measuring solar energy, or making connections that lead to a career. Whether you call it STEM, STEAM, or STREAM, cross-curricular, real-world education is helping students to make a difference in their communities now and preparing them for further education and careers. And creative collaboration is the key.
KA HEI: CAPTURING THE SUN
RISING COSTS AND FEARS
“What if a tsunami hits Hawaii and cuts off our fossil fuel energy supply? We can’t even have light or running water. We’d go back to the caveman times,” says a student at Honowai Elementary School in Waipahu, Hawaii.
While clean energy and conservation issues affect us all, thanks to Ka Hei, a collaboration between the Hawaii State Department of Education, OpTerra Energy Services, and DefinedSTEM, Hawaiian students are particularly aware of the need to learn and take action to preserve their beautiful but fragile island environment. Ka Hei is “a multi-pronged approach to sustainability and incorporation of STEM,” says Brent Suyama, DOE communications specialist. Even the name is collaborative—the Hawaiian god Maui used a snare called a Ka Hei to capture the sun, and Ka Hei also means “to absorb as knowledge or skill.”
With $50 million in annual energy costs and fuel prices rapidly rising, in addition to weather changes necessitating the installation of air conditioning in schools, assistant superintendent for facilities Dann Carlson explains that the department began by investing time in writing a creative RFP to find a primary partner for this sustainability program. OpTerra won the competitive bid, which included a unique power purchase agreement financed over 20 years at a fixed rate. Finance was a particular concern, as the Hawaii legislature determines all state funding for public schools.
With DefinedSTEM as their curriculum partner, in 2014 work on the three E’s of Ka Hei—efficiency, electricity generation, and education—began. The first step was to perform energy audits in all 256 schools, install LED lightbulbs and other efficiencies, and begin educating everyone about energy and water conservation. As many schools are used as shelters during hurricanes and energy security is a pressing concern, community involvement and support are critical.
HARNESSING THE ELEMENTS
“I didn’t know we used so much fossil fuel to do … everyday stuff. We gotta do something … Now I know why so many houses have PV and why we see wind turbines. It’s all good stuff for the aina [the Hawaiian word for land],” says another Honowai Elementary student.
Ka Hei is taking advantage of the sun and wind, exploring innovative energy technology and installing photovoltaic (PV) panels. Eighty schools benefitted from a narrow window offering net energy agreements, and efforts to find creative ways to finance PV panels for the rest of the schools and to establish microgrids in five pilot schools are ongoing. This next phase, with the ultimate goal of net-zero buildings, also involves engineering storage solutions.
EDUCATION FOR EVERYONE
Ka Hei’s curricular initiatives, in partnership with DefinedSTEM, involve all 180,000 students in 256 schools across seven islands. Suyama describes the excitement of students as they monitor usage and take responsibility for their own campuses. This kind of STEM learning, he says, is tangible—and “they love it.”
The comprehensive and hands-on training for teachers includes bringing in individuals from local businesses to share their expertise as well as surveys, contests, and information to communicate to parents and guardians. Elizabeth Shigeta, curriculum coordinator for Honowai Elementary School, notes that due to this “shared training experience, teachers are able to collaborate with each other,” which creates “a more meaningful experience” for students. Sharing at home what’s learned in the classroom, she says, is “critical.”
The STEM curriculum for the initiative “connects age-appropriate information and standards,” Shigeta says, but what’s most valuable for learning is the pairing of curriculum and equipment so that it’s effective for students’ different learning modalities. As a result, even young students demonstrate a deep understanding of their connection and responsibility to their environment. “Living on an island has many good things for us to do, like go to the beach, swimming, and hiking. But we need to look at energy like we look at our island. We need to understand and care for it,” says another of Shigeta’s students.
Another Honowai Elementary student perhaps sums it up best: “Yeah. I waste a lot of energy. I know what I can do and I’m going to do it!”
Learn more about this exciting initiative at http://www.hawaiipublicschools.org/ConnectWithUs/Organization/SchoolFacilities/Pages/Ka-Hei.aspx.
TOOLS THEY USE
HONOWAI ELEMENTARY
► DefinedSTEM
► iPads
► Island Energy Inquiry curriculum and equipment (a subsidiary project of Ka Hei/OpTerra)
► LEGO MINDSTORMS
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