Paetyn Gealon has spent the last four weeks learning all about the water cycle. The six-year-old has also made crafts, taken numerous trips around the island and cleaned an ipu — an instrument made from gourds.
Paetyn Gealon has spent the last four weeks learning all about the water cycle. The six-year-old has also made crafts, taken numerous trips around the island and cleaned an ipu — an instrument made from gourds.
But, Gealon’s favorite part about Kamehameha Schools Hawaii campus’ Halau Kupukupu Innovations Academy Summer School wasn’t any of that. She most enjoyed connecting with her native Hawaiian roots and learning more about the land.
“It’s special to learn more about Hawaiian stuff,” Gealon said.
Gealon is among nearly 900 students in kindergarten through 12th grade who took part in the second-year summer program, aimed at instilling concepts in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math with a “Native Hawaiian lens,” coach Jenn Chun-Hoon said. Students spent much of the 4-week program outside, on field trips and engaged in project-based learning.
“It’s really about building that relationship with the aina,” Chun-Hoon said. “That’s really what STEAM is. It’s putting our keiki outside versus inside and giving them the opportunities to build that relationship.”
The Hawaii campus has offered summer programs for more than a decade. The Halau Kupukupu summer academy however, is in its second year. Halau Kupukupu builds upon the old program, school spokesman Shaun Chillingworth said, by taking a more hands-on approach and focusing on helping students learn more from the surrounding aina.
The program is open to Kamehameha students and Native Hawaiian students in nearby public and private schools. Around 50 percent of this year’s participants attend Kamehameha during the regular school year, school officials said.
On Thursday, dozens of parents flocked to the Keaau-based campus for the program’s hoike. Gealon and her classmates performed a mele — or a chant — for a cluster of picture-taking, beaming parents. Six-year-old Kaleb Aiona said it took more than a week to learn and practice the mele. Aiona’s favorite part of the summer academy was “the field trips.”
“We want to offer the keiki a chance to get out, to learn, to take notice of and to just embrace the environment that surrounds them,” Chun-Hoon said. “They get to observe, take in information and then take that back to the classroom.”