 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Good afternoon and welcome to Likeable Science. I'm your host, Ethan Allen, here on Think Tech Hawaii. Thanks for joining us. The Likeable Science is all about how science is a vital, dynamic and interesting part of everyone's life, not just scientists. And here today in the Think Tech Studio to help me explore this are two people, Alayna Fardon from Kamehameha Schools. Welcome, Alayna. Thank you. I'm Dr. Helen Turner from Shamanad University. Welcome, Helen. Hi, Ethan. Great to be here. Thank you. Well, thanks to both of you. What we're going to be exploring today is a really innovative partnership that your two organizations have going. And maybe, sort of at the heart of it lies this Halau Inana space. Maybe you can start out, Alayna, telling us a little bit about that. Sure. So, Halau Inana Makapaakea is in Mo'ili, Ili, and it already started off as a place of need. And then the momentum behind it kind of drove it towards transformation. So, we've been working with some of our community colleges on their nursing pathway and their native Hawaiian plants stem pathway, and they needed an extra space to grow their native Hawaiian plants. So, they came to us and we went to our commercial real estate division to say, is there any space within Honolulu that we could possibly use to help expand their native Hawaiian plant garden? So, we looked at Mo'ili, Ili. It was an asset that was underperforming. And when I say underperforming, it was closed, it was a lot of graffiti, and just unused space. So, we took that space, renovated it, and we added a rooftop garden, and that was really the genesis of what happened. And the transformation part that came after that was really this momentum behind, how do we add partnerships with our educational partners, how do we add partnerships with our community, and that's really how Halau Inana came to be as it is today. Excellent. Excellent. And so, Helen, Shaman and I got involved in this. We did. We did. I mean, I think the first thing to say is, you would not recognize the space, this graffiti-ridden place. It is a beautiful space. It's a collaborative learning environment. It is chalk-filled with technology, modular learning spaces for students and community members. And I guess with Shaman and I are coming in as one of the lead partners along with the University of Hawaii Kamehameha Schools and the Minshaw Incubator, for us it was about connecting science to community. So at Shaman, you know, a big part of our mission is testing everything we do against what does Hawaii need, and we know we need programs in health care. We know we need programs in sustainability. We know we need programs in business and social justice. And yet making, as a higher education institution, making that link to community, actually sitting face to face with them, is sometimes quite hard to do, especially, you know, because of being, it's an ivory tower, right? What Halau and Nana does is it provides us with a space where community, academia, students, learners, and also, you know, people who are running organizations, there's a lot of leadership figures involved in Halau and Nana, they can all come together and kind of coalesce around those big themes and big questions that confront Hawaii. It's incredibly exciting to us. It's great, it's a very innovative form of learning where you have learners at all level, right, from the kids who are supposedly there as the learners to the adults actually running that, who are also learners. Excellent, excellent. That's, so maybe to give the audience a little better sense of this, what kinds of programs happen there? Sure, maybe I'll start off and then I'll hand it over to Helen. It's a long list, right? Yeah, it is a long list. So some of the three main focus areas that we've been looking at for programming for Halau and Nana to be a very intentional space is we're looking at three strands, so OEV leadership, entrepreneurship, and innovation. So within those three strands, we've had several different types of programming from Moonshot Lab that's using innovation and entrepreneurship with high school, from El Tino coding that's teaching our DOE and our immersion school faculty how to use coding in the classroom for all disciplines to innovation, you know, working with Shyamalan and UH Manol in the different programings that they're doing. So it's been a wide gap and a wide span of learners from our Kiki all the way to our post high end adult learners. And some very, very informal, less structured situations, some very tightly more organized then? I think some of it's a little bit more collaborative. Some things happen by accident and we love that to have that space. But the accents that happen end up becoming this innovation or something different than we had intended. Other programming that we've had are networking events. How do we connect our learners that want to go into these fields with mentors or business leaders that are already in those fields? You have to have a space, an event, whatever, to give them a chance to come together, right? Yeah, or find out what's not going on there in the community. But that learning, sort of accidental learning is a really incredible and a powerful thing I used to work at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. And we had a prototype room where we'd run initial sets of exhibits and would learn a lot. But it was sometimes the accidents that proved the most powerful. So one exhibit where we're getting ready to prototype and the last minute we have no stools, we have no chairs. What are we gonna do? Well, we're going to have some benches. Okay, we'll put benches there. And it turned these exhibit experiences into collaborative experiences. Two and three people that sit on the bench and work together on these, which we never even thought about. And it was just, it really changed the whole character of it. So I like what you say about those, watching out for those to learn. Now, excellent. So where are you really taking us? Where is this going? I mean, it's bringing diverse groups together. Well, so for us, I think that it is a vehicle for us to connect to the community. We're bringing primarily at the moment STEM education activities into the space. But we also have a lot of opportunities for our own students to come and interact in that space as peer leaders, as mentors. You're gonna hear some of that, but I'm a scientist after a break. But we also, the connection to culture is an incredibly important part of it for us as well. So at Shamanard, we're a native Hawaiian serving institution. More and more native Hawaiian students every year are choosing us for their college education. And particularly in the STEM disciplines, that creates a lot of responsibility for us to think about how our students, both of science and of culture, right? And so the Kuma Residence Program, Halao Anana, the board and stone classes. These amazing cultural experiences that our students interact with the space as both Hawaiians and as scientists. And to learn the immense richness of Hawaiian culture and what that brings into their future development as scientists as well. That's a big piece of it for us. And we recently were able to secure a couple of grants from the National Science Foundation that really let us expand that programming and figure out models that connect science and traditional culture that might be applicable elsewhere. So there are those kind of synergies for us. And then just being involved in the leadership group every two weeks, we get to sit down at a table with our colleagues from UH Manoa, colleagues from KS, colleagues from Moonshot Lab. And there are projects and things that develop from that, that were perhaps the accidental consequences, right? So I think where it can go from our perspective is only on to greater and better things, touching more learners, bringing more community together and providing more and more of a vehicle for our students to connect to community. Definitely, and I think where we see it going is we like to outgrow the space. And what I mean by that is we're using this space as a pilot to really see, to pressure test what does the innovation space look like in the community? What are the needs of the groups? What are the facility needs or equipment needs? And once we learn those things, how do we outgrow the space and build it bigger or build it elsewhere or replicate it in other regions? So yeah, and people think of science as being something that is sort of devoid of culture or separate from culture, but it isn't. It springs from cultures, it's supported by the culture of Louisiana. And it's great to hear you're talking about that. Certainly the other project that Halomite involved in the Ikiwai project, we look back and see the Hawaiians had a deep understanding of the value of water, the need to control fresh water on the surface in the ground, and good technologies to do this. And we sort of have forgotten those or lost track of them or overrode them. You know, I think the connection between science and culture, we spend a lot of time thinking about that at Shamanad. And I think there's sort of two dimensions to it that we've identified. One is that no student should have to leave their culture behind to become a scientist. You know, that then creates barriers that just don't need to be there. And that's not just common to Native Hawaiian students, that is part of the issue with the level of underrepresentation we have in science nationally, globally. But the other piece of it is also how can incorporating culture, and this I think is a nuttier problem, but it's one that we really work on, how can that actually make you a better scientist? So Dr. Jolene Cogbill, who you're going to meet after the break, you know, she's doing some things in her classes where doing craft-like activities, making nets, doing cordage, that can make you a better scientist, that can make you more precise, more able to concentrate, better follow through all those skills that we normally teach, but in a very abstracted, kind of westernized way. And, you know, so we spend a lot of time thinking about that. I don't think we're there yet, but there's a lot of interesting stuff along the way. Yeah, and it's really important to integrate that, so the students feel and understand that connection. So, yes, as you said, they're not having to leave stuff behind, but they see these skills I've learned that maybe my grandparents taught me. Oh, they have applicability now, right, yeah. Yeah, they mean something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and it makes science less abstract, right, and less of a kind of a thing that people like that do, right? Right, this is why it fits in so well with the theme of the show. Exactly. Makes it more likable. Excellent. So, what have you learned so far from this? I mean, it's only been going on for, what, a third year? Wow. So, I think some of the things that we've learned, just being part of the innovation space, is understanding the different needs of our partners. Each of them come with something different to the table. How do we address those? I think the biggest thing that we've learned as an organization for Kumbahana Schools is our communication and our readiness. It's very different for us to take the backseat and not be the direct programmers. So, we have to be in that supportive role, and it's a new role that we have to learn, and I think that's part of the learning process, and it's been a very enjoyable one. The other part is just communication. What are our absolute goals? What are we trying to aim for? Where are those successes and bright spots that we're looking for, and are we communicating those enough and well enough to our partners so that our work really overlaps. It's not an add-on to what Shamuna does or UH does. It's something that we all do together. Exactly. One of the key central thrusts of really a successful collective impact partnership is that everyone understand each other very clearly, and so when you use a word, your partners understand, it's sort of like the term inquiry that got started being used well in science, and then gradually came to mean anything that anyone wanted to mean until it became almost useless to it. You've got to define your terms, be sure everyone's in sync with common goals, understanding, yes, that Helen's role is different from your role, that you bring different strengths, different constraints, but all of them together build this synergy that's really, you can accomplish a lot more, right? Definitely. And I liked your comment about being, learning to be a follower, I mean, because I think that's a critical skill, right? You can't all bleed all the time and everything, right? You have to learn to follow at times. And the partners are learning too, so what have we learned? We've learned there's a lot of appetite out there for the kind of informal science education programs we have that you're gonna hear more about. Again, maybe prompting us to need to do some capacity building there. I think we've learned the value of the third place, so the Starbucks CEO, right? He always talked about this idea that Starbucks is the third place in people's lives. You've got home, you've got work, you've got this third place. And I think for a university to think about a third place as a learning environment and what kind of program we need to offer in those spaces, that might be very different from the way we've done business for the last, you know, 800 years of academia, right? And so I think that's been very valuable to us and with our new president coming on board and thinking about how do we get Shamana's education into the community in modes that the community wants from us. There we go. I mean, Hello and Ana really was very forward-looking for us in starting us getting thinking along those lines. Hey, well, this is so exciting. I hate to cut us off, but the powers that be telling me we're coming to a break and your colleagues want to get their chance to talk about some first-hand experience in these programs. Lionel Fardon, Helen Turner, thank you so much for being here. And we'll be right back after a break. I just walked by and I said, what's happening, guys? They told me they were making music. Aloha, my name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea comes on every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join us. I like to bring in guests that talk about all types of things that come across the sea to Hawaii, not just law, love, people, ideas, history. Please join us for Law Across the Sea, Aloha. I'm Helen Dora Hayden, the host of Voice of the Veteran, seen here live every Thursday afternoon at 1 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. As a fellow veteran and veterans advocate with over 23 years experience serving veterans, active duty and family members, I hope to educate everyone on benefits and accessibility services by inviting professionals in the field to appear on the show. In addition, I hope to plan on inviting guest veterans to talk about their concerns and possibly offer solutions. As we navigate and work together through issues, we can all benefit. Please join me every Thursday at 1 p.m. for the Voice of the Veteran, Aloha. And welcome back to a likeable science. I'm your host, Ethan Allen here at Think Tech. And you may notice we've changed guests here in the middle of the show. We now have Dr. Jolene Cogmill, who's an assistant professor of biology in the whole program. Sean and I, right? And Cassandra Song. Who is an alumnus of the same program and have an instructor in the program, right? Excellent, excellent. So welcome to the show. And it's great to have you. So we talked last time, last half, sort of about the big, almost a 20,000 foot view of the partnership, the KS channel, partnership, the space. But you guys live this and breathe it right on a much more day-to-day basis. So tell me a little bit about, first off, I guess, what is this Holulu program? Well, the Holulu program is the partnership between Shamanad and Kamehameha schools where we have been able to offer up to, at this point, I believe we have 60 native Hawaiian students in the STEM fields. And if they're accepted to the program, they get four years of their tuition paid for. In addition to that, there's a whole bunch of other services that come with the Holulu program. So the goal of the Holulu program is to really train native Hawaiians in STEM, right? And explore what it means to be a native Hawaiian in a STEM field and bring culture to the science. So we do that, hopefully, with allowing them to really focus, right? They don't have to worry about working. They get a full ride. We also have a full wrap-around, what's the word I'm looking for, advising for the students so that they get checked in regularly. We have cultural events for them so that they can learn more about their culture. And those who don't know much, because we have students who come from the mainland, they get to learn about it. Those who know their culture, came from Kamehameha schools and have had it part of their everyday life, they miss it when they come to college. And so this is a way for them to keep it. Right, and this is what Helen was saying in the last half about being sure that learning STEM does not mean you're putting their culture aside, but it's much more trying to integrate them. So you can probably tell us a little bit about how successful that's been. Yeah, this is an amazing scholarship. It's so much different than the other ones that we had because as Dr. Cogbill said, we're required to check in weekly about how we were doing and it makes such a difference knowing that there's someone there listening to you for concerns outside of the classroom, you know. So I think that's really helped with the success of the scholarship as well, but yeah, we've had programs where we go to community outreach for teaching science into places that don't usually have it and we visit low E's and we just do a bunch of cultural volunteering that I never had. So it was really beneficial to me. Well, great, and that gives you a much richer sense of science. It's not just something you walk off and do in a lab, right? It's part of the community you live in, part of the community that you came from. You're giving back, you're also taking knowledge from that and incorporating it, so that's really, yeah. So I know you've had various diverse groups come through as well as beyond the whole loop. You also do this I am a scientist program, right? Yes, that is something we are very, very proud of. Lori Shimoda, who is the really innovator behind I am a scientist and who does all of that on the ground, planning it, organizing it, coming up with new science modules, has taken this and just really grown it. And so it's a program that services... What's the youngest group we've done? First grade. Normally through middle school, though I think we've had high school a few times too, where we'll go out to their schools, but we've also had them on campus. Girl Scouts has come and done things. Those students who are, they get taught at home. That's the word I'm looking for. Home school? The home school kids. We have programs for them as well so that they can come on campus and be in the university labs. And it allows us to make science fun and introduce science at a young age so that science isn't scary. It's something you do and it's something that's hands-on and it's fun. And our students and the Hulu students especially, we really encourage them to make this part of their daily outreach. Like that's what we have them do as their volunteerism for the program. Yeah, it's so valuable. Some of us grew up in environments where science wasn't really foreign where it was sort of something you knew about. But there's lots of people who didn't and if they don't establish that identity, that engagement with science, they'll never really pick up on science, never really understand and appreciate and enjoy science as a way to learn. It's something that's higher thinking and really it's what we all do every day. It's part of our daily life. Exactly, people don't realize but the problem-solving skills we all have when you go and turn on the light switch and light doesn't go on, you don't start praying to light gods, right? You either check the bulb or check the switch or check the plug. I mean, there's a set of rational logicals of processes that are basically fundamentally science. You were talking a little bit about the broader support beyond sort of the academics per se and I think that's probably particularly important for kids who come into this, not from a privileged academic kind of background. Yeah, well, I was a first generation college student and so I struggled a lot when I first came in. The support I got from the Houlou scholarship, it was invaluable to me, right? Cause I would come in and talk to Dr. Cogbill. I was like, you know, I'm having trouble with this. I don't know what to do and then she would just give me all these resources that were available to me that I wouldn't have known otherwise. And I think I missed that with other scholarships that I've had before, you know, that wasn't so involved. Cause at first you think, oh, I have to fill out a survey every week, tell you how my day was, how many hours I studied. And I was like, oh, but it was nice cause I was able to self reflect and think, oh, maybe I didn't do well because I didn't study enough. And then Dr. Cogbill would talk to me about it the next week and they do that with every scholar. And they know all of them by name and it's just, it's very, it's more like a family and like that's helping you get to the next step. So it's, it's very unique. The goal is to support them at every level. Sure. You know, just not find, not just financial. Right. So we have students, I never expected as a professor to know so much personally about my students. I do. And the great thing about the Ho'Ulu program is we do get to know them as, as people. They come in just to tell us about their day. You know, it might not be academic stress. It might be stuff that they're having with their siblings or their parents or their boyfriends. I have a lot more conversations about that than I ever thought I would. And so it, it's not meant to be invasive. And I think that we have succeeded and when we do these weekly check-ins, they do see it as someone wants to hear about my day and they care. You know, and it's not just, did you do your work? Oh, you didn't show up. So now there's a consequence. It's more, we didn't show up. What can we do to help you? But it's also provides rich data that is gonna allow the program to continue to grow, to learn, you know, what is the important thing? Is it the number of hours that the students are spending studying? Is it the number of social events they go to? Is it, you know, what the, the fact that they get to meet and intermingle with other students in similar backgrounds, you know? Which of these is sort of more important? It's gonna be interesting to find out. We've just, this is the beginning of our second year. And so we are still growing and adding new things. We just were fortunate enough to hire a cultural enrichment specialist who was helping us bring more culture into the program. You know, the goal is really to make sure that this is not just money. You're not just here to go to school with money. You're here to learn everything about yourself to make you a better contributor to society, you know? And we try to provide as many enrichment opportunities as possible. Actually, we were able to take Cassie to a conference last fall on the mainland. We went to Tampa for that conference, the annual biomedical minorities and research conference. And I think, I mean, it was just for her to explore all the opportunities that are out in science. And I'm taking two freshmen and a sophomore Hulu student this semester to another one called the SACNIST. And, well, it was greatly beneficial to me because before I went to the conference, I had no idea what I wanted to do. And then going there and speaking to grad students and faculty and grad school recruiters, people that are just in the science field, it made it seem more attainable to me. And so I came back just determined I'm gonna apply to grad school and see where that goes. So it gave me a pathway. And it was because of the whole scholarship was able to take me. It's so important and to sort of follow up on that. I know, I don't know whether you have as part of yours but the research experience for undergraduate is kind of program. We do. So yeah, you may think, I wanna go into physiology and you go into a physiology lab and discover you hate it. And that's great because then you haven't spent two or three years as a graduate student learning that you hate it. If you've discovered it early and you may decide, hey, I wanna go into molecular physics or whatever instead. Wow, this could obviously go on for ever and ever. But our time is drawing in the air. So I'm gonna just have to say real quick, 15 seconds advice for students. Don't be afraid to explore and try. You can do it. All you have to do is put your mind to it and find the right mentors to support you. Ask a lot of questions, ask everybody you know. Just talk about it. Perfect, perfect. Try and ask, I like to try and ask. So that wraps up another episode of Likeable Science. Thank you, Jolene. Thank you for having us. Thank you, Cassandra. Thank you. And best of luck and we shall see you next week. Thank you.