College and Career Summer Explorations

This summer, we had a terrific opportunity to work with Project Hōkūlani & CLD-TEAMS whose mission is to

“Support Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and Filipino middle and high school students enter into postsecondary science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields through a culturally responsive, strength- and work-based enrichment program.  ”

During a week-long summer immersion camp, students had a chance to connect with many STEM field experts to get hands-on experience exploring college and career pathways in everything from ecological conservation to creative digital media. We were honored to be asked to spend a day introducing these haumāna to the challenges our urban stream systems are facing. 

Our friends, ʻāina-based learning coordinator, Jon Watase and Principal Tim Los Banos from St. Louis School welcomed the group to Pālolo stream on their campus in Kalaepōhaku. Here, our program led a habitat assessment survey to help students identify various components contributing to poor habitat health for native migratory stream animals, and brainstorm which conditions are currently within our knowledge and skillset to improve. Hideki Kimukai from Sustainable Coastlines provided enthusiastic motivation and equipment to support the students in removing hundreds of pounds of land-based rubbish that found its way to the stream from bridges and storm drains. Aside from educational activities at these types of events, weʻre most proud to exemplify for students the power for change and resiliency that comes from forging strong community bonds and partnerships to tackle these otherwise insurmountable problems. 

After our time together in the stream, students from Project Hōkūlani used new creative media skills from a previous dayʻs lessons to bring avatar drawings and composite images to life in service of telling the story of their learning from the stream cleanup. Please check out these awesome student short films here! 

Learn more about the work of Hōkūlani Project and their impactful initiatives here:  https://cds.coe.hawaii.edu/hokulani/

Smallmouth Bass Investigation

In May, as a part of our year end recap, we sent this noticing and inquiry out to our partner teachers…

“Of the three Waikīkī streams we study, Mānoa has MORE sections of natural stream habitat than Pālolo and Makiki, but LESS presence of ʻoʻopu. Throughout 2023, we saw a higher instance of smallmouth bass in our nets in the lower sections of Mānoa Stream, but NONE in Pālolo and Makiki. Could bass, known as aggressive predators, be acting as a biological barrier to ʻoʻopu upstream migration in Mānoa?  What further investigation can students do on this?”  

We are pleased to report that ʻIolani School Independent Research student, Ann Tokoyoda, has joined forces with graduate student, Jaimie Hijii, from the Tsang Stream Lab at UH Mānoa, to investigate this issue further, and help provide our program with insight into bass diet.

With our whole Community Science team's support, Jaimieʻs background in bass aging research, and Annʻs experience with eDNA sequencing, we set out to examine the stomach contents of smallmouth bass caught in Mānoa Stream through both morphological and molecular techniques. Jaimie and Cory used a dissecting microscope in an attempt to find physical remains that could be morphologically identified as belonging to native ʻoʻopu and ōʻpae. At the same time, Ann collected samples from the stomach contents to use for DNA identification. Through dissection, we found the rostrum (comb-like portion of the head between the eyes resembling a nose or beak) and claw of an ʻōʻpae ʻoehaʻa, as well as what appeared to be the lower jawbone of an ʻoʻopu.

These tentative morphological identifications were confirmed through Annʻs sequencing; both ʻōʻpae ʻoehaʻa and ʻoʻopu akupa were identified in smallmouth bass stomach contents. Knowing more about the bassʻ preferred diet and how much their predation impacts ʻoʻopu populations will take more time and research to conclude.

However, confirming that they are eating our native species helps us more confidently discuss this problem with our partner teachers and students. While we cannot target specific species for removal directly through our fish population surveys with students, we can all initiate important conversations with our neighbors and the recreational fishing community about the negative impact of relocating invasive fish like bass into our streams and encourage more bass fishing in Mānoa to rectify the problem. 

Mahalo nui to our volunteers!

Volunteers help us to safely conduct our stream assessments. It means so much to us have a diverse group of adult learners who give their time and attention to our stream restoration mission, and are shining examples of college and career pathways in resource management for our younger students.

Mahalo nui to Kejty Fialová, a graduate student from the Czech Republic, studying environmental toxicology in aquatic habitats. This fall semester, she got a chance to learn about Hawaiian streams from our students, while sharing her own culture and expertise with them.

We were also fortunate to have UH Mānoa undergraduate and graduate students from Dr. Yin-Phan Tseng’s stream lab and Dr. Mehana Vaughn’s Kaiāulu-Collaborative Care and Management of Natural Resources course in the field with us supporting student learning.  

Graduate volunteers Joel, Kejty, and Cherryle at the Jarrett Middle School stream site in Pālolo after a long morning of fish surveys with students.