July 2019 Newsletter
Inside
Education Incubator
Education Incubator is officially a Blue Zones Project Participating Organization! This summer, we explored many different ways to amplify health and well-being in our lives through community, culture, and fun.
Mālama Old Stadium Park
Mālama Old Stadium Park – Intersection Project and Popup: We joined Blue Zones Project 4M and many other community partners in activating Old Stadium Park through a series of design discussions, and a street painting project inspired by the history and culture of the Mōʻiliʻili-McCully area. Trees for Honolulu’s Future, Honolulu’s Complete Streets, Age-Friendly Honolulu, Department of Transportation Safe Routes to Schools Program, and experts in wayfinding, community advocacy, and a variety of stakeholders participated in the week of engaged reflection on how to reactivate the area. Participants conducted a walk audit using the tools from AARP, dove into a brainstorming session with EI on what features the public needs and wants in a re-envisioned Old Stadium Park, and completed a community street art project in the bulb-outs at the intersection of South King and Isenberg Street. It was great to learn alongside community members and to hear all of their wonderful ideas! Check out Hawaii News Now and KHON 2 News for their feature of this project.
Lei Making Workshop with Malia Heimuli
We were so excited to host a Lei Making Workshop at Hālau ʻĪnana Ma Kapaʻakea with Blue Zones Project 4M. Led by flower and plant enthusiast Malia Heimuli, participants learned about various plants grown in Malia’s backyard, and how to make a haku style lei poʻo. Together as a community, we laughed, shared stories of our names, and helped each other in the process of learning and making lei poʻo. Mahalo Malia for sharing your ʻike and manaʻo!
STEMS^2 Symposium
The first annual STEMS^2 Symposium was held on June 28th at Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies on the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Mahalo STEMS^2 Symposium Planning Committee for hosting the gathering, and congratulations on this new aspect of your amazing program – your trailblazing efforts to bring the S^2 to STEM through social science and sense of place is such important work. Our EI Summer Team enjoyed connecting and reconnecting with various community members at the event and sharing their passion projects with you! And thank you to our session participants for sharing their “why” for the symposium with us – here is a map of their thoughts below:
EI Summer
2019 Team
Summer Team: Katelyn, Gen, Mayumi, John, Dayevin, and Cody join us as volunteer interns this summer, helping us with various community outreach and programming, as well as working on their passion projects and professional skills development. One of the project areas that our summer team is helping us with is 360-degree digital storytelling; they are working to create guides for other youth and learners on how to create 360-tours, created some 360-degree tour prototypes for the Old Stadium Park activation project, and started drafting a tour of the Mānoa Heritage Center — we invite you to take a look at this early stage prototype and give suggestions and feedback; next versions will include citations and links to other resources.
We also look forward to our summer fellow from Teach For America, Lia, who will be joining us during the second week of our XLR8YOUTH program – we love a full house!
EI Book
Nook
We love this article by local teacher Jill Fletcher, featured on international education platform Edutopia — Jill shares about the experiences of Kāneʻohe Elementary and their Innovation Academy, a program we have been so lucky to support since its inception. Read more about the work of Kumu Bella, Kumu Sarah, Kāneʻohe Elementary, their community client and partner Mark Paikuli-Stride, and the amazing students of the KES Innovation Academy. Mahalo to this incredible community for sharing so much of your learning journey with the world, and we are so looking forward to continuing our work together!
PD is only
a click away!
If you are interested in project-based learning, social and emotional learning, comprehensive assessment, teacher development, integrated studies, and technology integration, Edutopia is where you can find resources! Edutopia shows people how to adopt or adapt best practices and shares stories of innovation and continuous learning in the real world.
ʻUluʻulu aims to perpetuate and share the rich moving image heritage of Hawaiʻi through the preservation of film and videotape related to the history and culture of Native Hawaiians and the people of Hawaiʻi. ʻUluʻulu is a Hawaiian word meaning collections, assembly, or gathering. Their archive is not just a collection of moving image items, but also an assembly of voices, communities, and stories; a gathering place for people to share Hawaiʻi’s culture, traditions and collective memory. We recommend visiting ʻUluʻulu for a deep dive into the history of Hawaiʻi, in the voices and images of those who live it.
One Tab
Ever find yourself deep into a web search or project with lots of tabs open that you don’t want to lose, but don’t want to keep open at that moment? Or want to keep your tabs organized in a list of hyperlinks somewhere, to refer to later? Try out OneTab, one of the many extensions available on Chrome. With just one click on the OneTab icon on your Chrome browser bar, you convert all of your tabs into a list – when you need to access the tabs again, you can either restore them individually or all at once. You’ll even save on memory because you reduce the number of tabs open in Google Chrome!
By Choya, our Catchafire Volunteer
July Spotlight: John Creates
a Sweet Solution
for Plastic Pollution
Meet John, an impressive 10 year old from the University Laboratory School who is passionate about plastic pollution and baking. For over a year he has regularly come to work with Education Incubator after school to learn, have fun, and get started on cool projects. When EI staff asked about his community’s needs, loves and strengths, John had a bright idea. He was going to combine his love for baking and concern for plastic pollution to create reusable bags for baked goods.
“I am passionate about helping people,” said John. “That’s why the money I make is going to people in need.”
John reached out to Cookie Corner for support with his ideas, and they donated cookies to help jumpstart John’s vision. Jim McArthur, the President of Cookie Corner, personally responded to John’s email and he was so grateful for Jim’s support!
Along with continuing to create reusable bags, John has been selected for XLR8YOUTH, a new program that will support Hawaiʻi youth in designing solutions to the challenges of today and tomorrow. Open to youth ages 10-20 years old, XLR8YOUTH will run July 15 through July 26 and will help participants turn their out-of-the-box ideas into reality, just like with John’s reusable bags project.
“Without Education Incubator my idea would not have come true,” said John.
Choya, our
Catchafire volunteer
Choya is obsessed with making things come alive with words. She believes in the power of stories and has dedicated her life to sharing and creating them. She’s a writer, professor and a huge supporter of reinventing learning. She’s been published in Rigorous Magazine, midnight & indigo, FRONTRUNNER Magazine, Her Campus and more. She’s a proud Floridian who lives happily on Long Island in New York.
Mahalo Choya for your creative ideas on how to share our stories to the public and for capturing John’s story!