Beginning January 2007

Project Summary
Marine Educator and Learning Experience is a model Marine Naturalist Training Program partially funded through a grant from the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA). The course will be offered over 12 weeks starting in late January 2007.
MELE will benefit the local community, ecotour industry & the State of Hawaii Makai Watch program by providing accurate training and materials on protected species, coral reefs and marine reserves. The MELE program will be piloted in Kealakekua Bay which is not only one of the main critical spinner dolphin resting areas in the State of Hawaii, but also a site with important cultural and natural resources. This bay also contains one of the best coral reef habitat areas in the state. The combination of these features has made it a major tourist destination.
Makai Watch is an official State of Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) program, similar to a neighborhood watch, where community volunteers are trained to provide information about and look after the natural and cultural resources in their area. MELE will increase the knowledge base for both naturalists working in the ecotourism industry and residents participating in Makai Watch programs. It is our experience that the vast majority of people would like to enjoy the marine environment without causing negative impacts. However, many people do not have enough knowledge to do this consistently. Because education will ensure a higher rate of compliance with current laws and best practices, this will reduce the need for enforcement actions.
Because training will be provided to leaders within the marine recreation industry, these individuals will then provide further training to their staff. This program will also result in more engagement and interaction between the commercial tour operators and the local community and DLNR personnel. Because the public outreach materials are developed in cooperation with graphics designers, they will be both informative and engaging. The outreach resources will be tested during the pilot phase to ensure that they work well for naturalists and Makai Watch personnel in their efforts to educate both local and out-of state visitors.

Objectives:
• Reduce harassment of resting dolphins and turtles and reduce the negative impacts of snorkelers in reef and inter-tidal areas.
• Provide more accurate information to the local community and the staff of ecotourism companies about key concepts in marine science and marine conservation
• Provide better outreach materials for use in the field by community volunteers and marine ecotourism operators.
• Provide a better experience and more information on our marine environment to visitors to Kealakekua Bay and other marine protected areas in Hawaii.
• Increase the engagement and the communication between local community members and the companies in the marine ecotourism industry.
• Create bridges between the local community and the Hawaii Community College/University of Hawaii system.

MELE will develop and test a marine science curriculum and outreach materials that will be useful for Kealakekua Bay and marine natural resource sites through out the State of Hawaii. The end products of the proposed program will include Training Resources for marine naturalists and Makai Watch personnel, and Outreach Materials to be used to educate visitors to the bay. Once completed, all these resources will be available through out the islands. The units will cover the geology, marine biology and ecology of Hawaii, emphasizing the Island of Hawai`i and Kealakekua Bay. The pilot training will also cover human impacts and management, including presentations by personnel from State and Federal agencies (DLNR, NOAA). The training course will be coordinated with UH Hilo and Hawaii Community College, to provide university credits whenever possible.
Participants will field-test and refine the materials. Weekly assessments and feedback by participants will assist in finalizing each unit in the training manual. Most participants will test the outreach materials in their positions as marine naturalists or Makai Watch volunteers. The educational outreach materials to be produced will provide naturalists, on vessels and on shore, with the tools to provide accurate and engaging information to visitors and residents alike. The web pages will serve as resources in classrooms and for the general public. These materials could also serve as the foundation for a visitor information package.

Kula Nai`a Foundation makes presentation on Marine Soundscapes in K-12 Education at the 13th Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii

February, 2006

Ania Driscoll-Lind, Kula Nai'a Foundation and Robert Lozano, a 5th grade science teacher from Waikoloa Elementary School presented the education project which has developed from a underwater soundscape study of Kaloko Honokohau National Historical Park (KAHO) on the Island of Hawaii. One major objective of this study is to measure and quantify the underwater soundscape within the park. The Kula Nai'a Foundation, which is the coordinating organization in this cooperative effort, simultaneously began developing a K-12 educational component to this NPS Soundscape Project. The educational aspects of the project is part of a three-year pioneering initiative that will improve science and mathematics education in K-8 schools serving a rural and ethnically diverse student population in Hawai'i. Central goals of this systemic reform includes providing teachers with research based marine science curriculum in the context of outdoor or field projects and improving K-8 learner marine science attitudes and content knowledge.
To accomplish these goals partnerships were developed between the Kula Nai'a Foundation, the National Park Service, the Hawai'i Island Department of Education and a number of other cooperating organizations. A central foundation of the project is the adaptation of MARE (Marine Activities, Resources & Education) developed by the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Because it is research based and has been tested and piloted in classrooms through out the country it is a natural choice for teachers looking to engage their students in ocean sciences. MARE provides teachers with engaging hands-on inquiry-science activities that address science standards across the range of content areas including basic scientific methodology, life, earth and physical sciences. This partnership has formed to transform existing math and science curricula such as MARE into locally relevant science investigations that meet state education standards. During the summer of 2005, Robert Lozanoe received a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) grant through the University of Hawaii, Hilo to participate in the NPS soundscape research project.
The presentation focused on Ocean Soundscapes and provided suggestions for hands-on projects involving sound in the ocean. The students in this project are comparing the soundscapes of different marine environments within KAHO National Park from the noisy popping of reef shrimp to the low, loud sounds of humpback whales in the open ocean. They are considering the impacts of anthropogenic noise on the natural soundscape. This curriculum is coordinated with both the MARE curriculum for Open Ocean as well as the Full Option Science System (FOSS) curriculum on Physics of Sound. Over the course of the next three years, these transferable, inquiry-based curricula, which have been created in partnership with leadership teams of teachers, will provide new inquiry-based field projects adapted to Hawaii's unique marine environments. Finally, through the partnerships formed to create this systemic reform, a professional learning community is developing in Hawaii that will culminate in improved math and marine science education across the island and beyond.

Kula Nai'a Foundation receives dolphin research funding from National Marine Fisheries Service.

July 9, 2003

Beginning in the spring of 2003, the Kula Nai'a Wild Dolphin Research Foundation is once again conducting research on the dolphin populations found along the Kona coast of the Island of Hawai'i. The research effort is partially funded by a contract from the National Marine Fisheries Service. This project expands on the foundation's long running study of the resident population of Hawaiian spinner dolphins (Stenella longirostris) and will now also study the local spotted (Stenella attenuata) and bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncates) populations. These dolphins are also frequently sighted within a few miles of shore. The current research effort is focused on building photo-ID catalogues of uniquely marked individuals and studying the population structure, habitat usage, movement and residency patterns of spinner, spotted and bottlenose dolphins. To facilitate management of these species, the Kula Nai'a Foundation will also collect data on human activities around these protected delphinids. (More Research)

K-12 Education Project:
Ceramics: Science and Serendipity

June 30, 2003

The Kula Nai'a Wild Dolphin Research Foundation has received a $20,000 grant from the Richard Smart Fund of the Hawaii Community Foundation's Mo Bettah Together program to support the development of a science and ceramics project for the schools in the Hamakua complex of the Island of Hawai'i.

This Ceramic Sculpture Project is a collaboration among North Hawaii's public schools, the North Hawaii Community Hospital, Art InSight, and the Kula Nai'a Foundation. The collaboration was born of a desire to connect the discipline of science with the spontaneity of art. The product of the collaboration is a series of workshops at North Hawaii‚s public schools, to create a community sculpture for installation at North Hawaii Community Hospital.

After school workshops in the Waikoloa, Pa'auilo, Waimea and Honoka were sponsored by the North Hawaii Community Learning Center. Each community explored a different element: Waikoloa focused on water, Waimea focused on earth, Pa'auilo on air, and Honoka'a chose fire. During after school sessions students worked on a wide variety of ceramic projects which will be combined into the finished sculpture for the North Hawaii Community Hospital. Collaboration between Peter Kowalke of Art InSight and Ania Driscoll-Lind of the Kula Nai'a Foundation created a science and art curriculum for both Waikoloa and Waimea schools.

A science and art curriculum focusing on water creatures was developed for the Waikoloa Elementary school. Over the course of four months the students explored the body plans of the major taxonomic groups (phyla) of marine creatures. The students learned about symmetry in relation to each of these major body plans. For example: radial symmetry was explored by studying jellyfish & corals (cnidarians) and phytoplankton, five-part symmetry was explored by studying sea stars, brittle stars and sea urchins (echinoderms) and bilateral symmetry was explored by studying crustaceans and insects (arthropods) and animals with backbones (chordates). Students used their knowledge about all these sea creatures to design tiles and other small ceramic projects which will become part of the final sculpture.

In June 2003, an intensive two week summer workshop at Waimea Middle School focused on the earth and fossils. The course covered how fossils are formed, and how scientists study them to learn more about the history of life on earth. The class used examples such as ancient sea creatures, dinosaurs, and extinct mammals such as saber-toothed tigers and wooly mammoths to learn about the geologic time line and the diversity of life on Earth (past & present). Students acted as detectives and studied the tracks & trails, the shells, and bones that are preserved in rock. These clues helped them to learn about the kinds of creatures that lived millions of years ago. And they used this knowledge to design and build the ceramic tiles that will become part of the finished sculpture at North Hawaii Community Hospital. By July 2003, over 100 people had helped to create the Elements Sculpture for North Hawaii Community Hospital. During the fall of 2003, the sculpture will be assembled with the assistance of students and community members.

In addition to the grant from the Richard Smart Fund of the Hawaii Community Foundation, this project has been made possible by funding from the North Hawaii Community Learning Center and the Ottaway Newspapers/Dow Jones Corporation. We would like to acknowledge the generous donations of supplies made by: Ceramics Hawaii, H.P.M., Bella Pietra, Tile Warehouse, Davis Tile and Marble, Big Island Marine, and Island Art Supply; sandwiches and food for our starving young artists provided by The Juice Shack and Cafe Il Mondo; and space for teaching in Honoka'a was donated by The Live Arts Center in Haina.

Learn more about human impacts on Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins

To read about our concerns on the increasing harassment of Hawaiian spinner dolphins, see the article on page 8 of the MMPA Bulletin (4th qt. Issue, 1999).