Kahua A'o: A Learning Foundation: Using Hawaiian Language Newspaper Articles for Place and Culture-based Geoscience Teacher Education and Curriculum Development

Kahua A'o is a collaborative project funded by the National Science Foundation aimed at developing science curriculum grounded in Hawaiian culture and place-based education. The project team is composed of members who contribute expertise in meteorology, geology, curriculum development, and Hawaiian language. To date, six lessons have been produced, four with a focus in meteorology and two with a focus in geology. The lessons are geared towards the middle school level, but can easily be adapted for other levels. Each lesson combines a scientific topic with relevant Hawaiian language resources. Serving as the main source for resources is the Hawaiian language newspaper archive, which is an online database of 75,000 pages from newspapers that were published between 1834 and 1948. By incorporating Hawaiian language newspaper articles into science lessons, we aim to teach science through culture and show a history of scientific inquiry intrinsic to Hawaiian culture in order to generate more interest in science among Hawai'i students, especially native Hawaiian students, who are underrepresented in scientific fields. Since most of the articles are specific to the Hawaiian Islands, all students will find more relevance with the lesson through place-based education. Kahua A'o lessons are currently being piloted with groups of public school teachers. Bishop Museum is also incorporating elements of the meteorology lessons into their science education curriculum. The goal of Kahua A'o is to become the first of many such interdisciplinary collaborations, especially those that utilize the rich repository of untapped knowledge in the Hawaiian language newspaper archive.