University of Hawaii Maui College Receives $ 2.4 Million Grant for STEM Learning Based on Native Hawaiian Culture

The University of Hawaii Maui College will receive $ 2.4 million over two years to launch a learning project to connect Indigenous Hawaiian youth and their families to STEM by “channeling their cultural relationship with the environment.”

As part of the ‘AINA IS: Advancing Informal Native’ Aina-based Inspirations in STEM ‘project, UH will partner with six community-based organizations across the state to create learning activities based on STEM issues related to Indigenous culture. Hawaiian and local environmental issues. The project, which begins in September, is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, which aims to promote new approaches and understandings of the development of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) learning. in informal settings.

“This project will give Native Hawaiian students the chance (to) connect with the environment, learn more about traditional practices and pursue a future career in STEM,” US Senator Brian Schatz said in a statement. Press.

The six partner community organizations – three in Maui and three in Oahu – are Hokunui Maui, Paeloko Learning Center, Hui o Wa’a Kaulua, Malama Learning Center, Kualoa Education Center and Papahana Kuaola.

“Our ‘aina-based community organizations give students a real problem to focus on. This is the key to the project – that it comes from an organization that is doing a great job and has an issue that they are currently working on, ”Jaymee Nanasi Davis, AINA IS program manager, said in a statement. “AINA IS enables us to provide STEM problem-based learning support, resources and training to our partners to continue their work in the community. “

AINA IS builds on the STEMulate Project, a problem-based learning program implemented at Upward Bound sites serving underserved high school students. According to Davis, who is also the research coordinator of the STEMulate project, there was a “significant increase in interest in the STEM career, scientific self-efficacy, and scientific motivation” for the students who participated in the STEMulate project.

Davis said the next step for the STEMulate project is to determine how the STEMulate process can be implemented at each of the community organizations’ six sites, before testing the programs at each site.

According to Hokulani Holt, who is involved with the Paeloko Learning Center, the grant “brings together the way we traditionally look at our world, especially using problem-based learning,” and the problem-based learning process we helps to “move forward by continuing to learn.”

“The role of ana-based community organizations is to provide young people with the opportunity to explore critical thinking through problem-based learning,” said Holt. “And that’s what we need in our world.”