Na Wai ‘Ekolu is an environmental studies program about the 3 waters in the Ala Wai watershed.  We teachers have had an opportunity to learn more about this with meetings in our educational community.  Cory Yap from the University of Hawai’i is an amazing field biologist that likes to work with all kinds of teachers and kids to help them learn more about stream habitats.  We are fortunate to have him come to help us explore more about streams in an experiment with a group of multi-ages students from Grade 1-10, Grade 2-12 and Grade 3-303.

Cory shared about stream life in Hawai’i in a class presentation with living examples of native and introduced animals.  He came back to teach us methods to capture stream life and separate the invasive introduced species from the natives.  Look at the cool nets we will use in teams to check out the stream life!

The natives go back into the stream and the invasive ones will go to be fertilizer in an environmental program in the back of Kalihi valley.  They will help plants grow.  Our three classes will take a morning and go to Manoa Stream to see what we can find out about stream life from the inside of the stream!  There could be more of this in our future with more classes….stay tuned and think about how you can help our native streams too!!