Graduate and Undergraduate Education
In addition to its importance as a research facility, Kewalo Marine Laboratory maintains a significant training program. Graduate students from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa departments of Zoology, Microbiology, and Genetics and Molecular Biology carry out research at Kewalo Marine Lab for their graduate degrees. Since its inception, more than 50 students have received master's or doctoral degrees based on their research at Kewalo Marine Lab. Graduate courses are taught at the lab almost yearly, and national and international symposia have been held at the Laboratory. Kewalo Marine Lab also serves as an important training site for post-doctoral fellows in experimental marine biology.
National Science Foundation "Undergraduate Mentoring in Environmental Biology"
Kewalo Marine Laboratory is also home to the University of Hawaiʻi's undergraduate training program funded by the National Science Foundation's Undergraduate Research Mentoring in Biological Sciences (URM) program. This grant, under Dr. Michael Hadfield, supports 13 undergraduate students from U.S. and U.S.-associated islands across the Pacific who undertake intense ten-week summer or full-year environmental biology internships in laboratories of one of the faculty at the different campuses. Since 2000, more than 80 Pacific Islanders completed their internships and have continued on to four-year universities and graduate schools, and have taken positions overseeing environmental conservation and natural resources management in their island homes. Both Dr. Hadfield and Dr. Robert Richmond serve as faculty mentors in the URM program. For more information about URM, visit the URM Program website.
National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education – Partnership for Advanced Marine and Environmental Science Training for Pacific Islanders
Dr. Robert Richmond and Dr. Michael Hadfield are also both involved in the NSF-ATE program for Pacific Islanders which works to improve the technological education at the undergraduate and secondary school levels through community colleges in the Pacific Islands, with the goal of fostering the development of Pacific Islanders specifically trained to serve their home islands as informed leaders in natural resource assessment, protection and restoration, and to provide information to the international community on the special problems experienced in island nations regarding resource sustainability, protection of biodiversity, pollution control and linkages between environmental and human health. This partnership supports regionally relevant curriculum development, the professional development of community college faculty and secondary school teachers, internships and field experiences for faculty, teachers, and students, and helps to strengthen the scientific infrastructure of the participating institutions. Read more about the NSF-ATE program.
K-12 Education
Hawaiʻi Children's Discovery Center
Kewalo Marine Lab graduate student Emi Yamaguchi has taken the lead in establishing an on-going educational relationship with the Hawaiʻi Childrenʻs Discovery Center, located a few blocks from Kewalo Marine Lab. She and undergraduate student Tyler Smith have set up educational displays and hands-on exhibits for elementary school children at the Center to teach them about some of the local ocean fauna, including peanut worms, sea hares, and Hawaiian bobtail squid, seeding the interest and excitement for a new generation of marine biologists.
Additionally, Ms. Yamaguchi was involved in the Centerʻs Waterfront Wonders Summer Camp, hosting a group of 16 children at Kewalo Marine Lab. Campers went on a scavenger hunt, searching tanks for sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and Hawaiian bobtail squid, then campers traveled to the lab, where they had a chance to look through the dissecting microscope at fireworms, palolo worms, baby bobtail squid, brittle stars, and more.
Community Outreach
Maunalua Bay Restoration Project
The Maunalua Bay Restoration Project is a community-based, NOAA-funded project headed by The Nature Conservancy in cooperation with scientists, resource managers, and state and federal agencies working with the non-profit group Mālama Maunalua to restore and conserve Maunalua Bay. Dr. Robert Richmond and his graduate students are active contributors to the Maunalua Bay Restoration Project, providing scientic support towards the project goal to restore the habitat of the reef flats in Maunalua Bay through the manual removal of an invasive mud weed (Avrainvillea amaldelpha) which has infested most of the bay's shallow reef flats, critically affecting the habitat of endemic reef fish and Hawaiian seagrasses, and threatened or endangered marine animals.
In addition to the restoration of the reef, Dr. Richmond and others are actively seeking to conserve the bay by working with the Army Corps of Engineers towards solutions to mitigate the effects of sediment runoff from the watershed drainage system in the area, which essentially buries and suffocates the natural reef ecosystem, easing the way for invasive species to take over. This project also includes public education efforts to inform the community of ways to help restore and conserve their recreational resource. Read more about the Maunalua Bay Restoration Project.
Kahi Kai
Founded in 2010 by three post-doctoral researchers from the Kewalo Marine Laboratory (Dr. Eric Roettinger, Dr. Mattias Ormestad, and Dr. Aldine Amiel), the non-profit organization Kahi Kai (meaning "one ocean" in Hawaiian) promotes communication and interaction between students, scientists and everyone who is interested and committed to the fascinating, mysterious and endagered marine world. One of the goals is to make complex biological data easily accessible to both research professionals and students, but also to the interested general public. For that, Kahi Kai develops scientific tools (e.g., a comparative gene expression database), captures photographs of sea creatures that can be used for scientific as well as educational purposes, and participates in workshops and lectures at various educational levels.
Kahi Kai is also responsible for the macro photography platform on the scientific 3-year Tara Oceans expedition, where Kahi Kai will document marine biodiversity in various places around the globe. During the first year of that expedition, our members joined the research schooner in the Mediteranean sea (Naples to Malta), the Red sea (Djibouti) and the Indian Ocean (Maledives to Mauritius, Mayotte). For more information, please visit our website: www.kahikai.org.
