build the confidence to pick up the fish. She also notes that some students who have a difficult time in the class- room will shine in the stream, where they are part of a team collaborating to get the job done. Both she and Yap agree on how infinitely rewarding it is to see the joy people experience during the stream visits. “You see it on their faces,” Yap shares, underscoring the natural connection people have to the ‘āina. “It doesn’t matter what age. Even the adults will act like little kids.”
speak mo‘ōlelo about all the wonderful relationships they built,” says Kaleo Hanohano, who provides support for the Ho‘okahe Wai Fellows. Hanohano, who currently teaches at Kahuku High School, was instrumental in getting Pa‘ēpa‘ē o Waikolu off the ground. Her students at Kaimukī High School, where she was then teaching, were the first to find more native species in our streams than invasives (see chart right), indicating that their efforts were working. Hanohano even recalls an Earth Day survey that showed upwards of 70 percent native fish in the stream. As a mentor for the Ho‘okahe Wai Fellows, she helps antici- pate the needs of participating teachers, from filling out paperwork to organizing school buses. “You can go your entire career as the crazy one on campus chasing down tiny little fish that nobody knows anything about. Then Ho‘okahe Wai Fellows pops up — [and] to know there is a name for what they love to do — they feel like, ‘Finally, somebody sees me,’” Hanohano says, of participating teachers. “When you have this group of unbelievable ‘āina warriors standing in line with you, you’re propped up.” She is equally inspired by the devotion of the Pa‘ēpa‘ē o Waikolu team.
HO‘OKAHE WAI FELLOWS
As Pa‘ēpa‘ē o Waikolu’s approach gains traction, teachers from around the island are eager to get their students involved. To maintain the momentum, Community Science launched the Ho‘okahe Wai Fellows program in July 2024. Participating Fellows are learning to coordinate stream animal surveys with their students the way Charuk and Yap do and develop meaningful watershed education experiences in beloved streams across windward O‘ahu. “It’s an opportunity for teachers to breathe together in this ‘āina momona (fertile land) and occupy the space from mauka to makai. To claim the biodiversity as their own, to stay there, measure it, kilo (observe) it, connect with their kūpuna, and then have students go out and
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