MHS Students Visit Bishop Museum

Community Contributed

Emilio Macalalad, MHS Science Teacher

A group of Molokai High School students took a trip to Oahu over winter break to explore Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and College and Career Readiness through hands-on experiences. The trip was funded by Molokai LIVE and a federal grant. Ten students participated, and we visited Ma`o Organic Farm, Hawaii Institute for Marine Biology, Bishop Museum, and UH West Oahu campus. The students were Nikki Augustiro, DJ Fiesta, Ayla Rose Naehu Ramos, Melody Kaili-Kalua, Kaeya Cummings, Robert Alex Mawae, Hanalei Lyons, Ida Pongmulee, Shylene Paleka, and Sharnelle Kaili, with the help of our Parent Community Network Coordinator Elizabeth Coleman as chaperone.

Bishop Museum waived a tremendous amount of fees for our students, and Molokai biologist Arleone Dibben-Young helped to coordinate our visit to four different departments in archives that included Molly Hageman (vertebrates), Clyde Imada (botany), Neal Evanthius (entomology) and Marques Marzan (ethnology).

Below, students shared what they learned during the Bishop Museum tour.

Alex Mawae: “Today we got to go on a back stage trip to the Bishop Museum. How fun! We got to see extinct birds, huge butterflies, and moths, creepy looking roaches and so much more! One of the coolest things were most likely the super tiny wasp that you could barely see with a magnifying glass.”

Ida Pongmulee: “The Bishop Museum was really cool, if a little rushed, and my favorite part was floor two, I think, where we saw different insects. Some of them were impressive, small, and others were so big they looked prehistoric. We saw great examples of the different methods bugs employ to protect themselves from predators like camouflage, spikes, and imitating other larger animals.”

Sharnelle Kaili: “On our final day of the trip, we stopped at the Bishop Museum and talked to five people… One of them showed us a historical artifact that’s called kapa… Another group of workers are archaeologists, they study different types of materials/soils in the ground… The third person studies different insects. There [were] other workers that talked about native birds and plants.”

Melody Kaili-Kalua: “Today on our last day of this three day trip we first visited the Bishop Museum. We got to talk to a whole lot of people that had a different but diverse and connected careers. We first met with Aunty Arleone who talked to us about the significance of knowing other different careers and what’s out there for us. She also told us about the importance of preserving and taking care of our native species, or in her case, native hawaiian birds. She told us about the different varieties of birds she collects and studies on. Later we got to meet with Mara who was an archaeologist who looked at rocks and different types of rock materials, to identify how old they were, where they came from etc. Then next we went to see a whole wide variety/collection of bugs and insects which were originated from different locations all over the world. Then lastly we went to visit botanists, who study plants. We also learned about how plants can be preserved properly, and we also got to hear how all of these different people got into their careers.”