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Kū‘ula Curricula

Introduction

The Kū‘ula Marine Resource Management Project is possible through the Department of Education curriculum development grants. The Edith Kanaka‘ole Foundation was awarded in October of 2001 and this curriculum is the culmination of our efforts.

The Kū‘ula Marine Resource Management Project endeavors to improve student and teacher achievement through development and training on curriculum focused upon traditional Hawaiian concepts and practices of marine resource management.

The long-range target population is the Native Hawaiian community, which has lost much of its knowledge of marine resource management practices. The Kū‘ula Curriculum will gather the knowledge of our elder fishermen and combine it with the traditional Hawaiian philosophy illustrated in the Kumulipo genealogy chant so our Hawaiian students may understand their connections with the land and sea. The Kū‘ula Curriculum will bridge the core academic subjects of math, science and language arts, with the relevance of traditional Hawaiian practices of coastal shoreline and fishery management so that our Hawaiian students may experience greater motivation to learning.

The immediate-range (3 years) target population will be the Native Hawaiian students in our schools, and the teachers of Native Hawaiian students. The Kū‘ula Curriculum will be disseminated state-wide, with state-wide teacher training workshops on the implementation of the curriculum in their classrooms.

The short-range (1-3 years) target population will be the students of the predominantly Native Hawaiian Keaukaha Elementary School (550 students enrolled). Keaukaha Elementary is located in the Keaukaha Hawaiian Homes residents are, a completely Hawaiian community.

In Year One of the project, teachers and students at Ka ‘Umeke Kā‘eo (formerly Kula Kaiapuni ‘O Keaukaha), Hilo Intermediate and Ke Ana La‘ahana participated in field projects while teachers developed the curriculum. These field projects take advantage of the traditional fishponds in Keaukaha that the Edith Kanaka‘ole Foundation has management of. We also made use of the Keaukaha shoreline as a model to develop a coastal Resource Management plan that may be replicated as a student project in schools state-wide. In Year Two, the draft curriculum was pilot-tested in Keaukaha Elementary, and three other predominantly Native Hawaiian school programs. In Year Three, the pilot-tested and revised Kū‘ula Curriculum will be disseminated state-wide, and complemented with state-wide teacher training workshops for implementation of the curriculum.

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Kū‘ula Mission Statement

The Kū‘ula curriculum will use the traditional knowledge of the ocean and its resources as a tool to preserve, and revitalize the ancestral understanding of the Kumulipo as it pertains to the life of the sea. This curriculum will connect the young minds of Hawaiian students with their kuleana of mālama kai and will maintain this connection through experiential learning and genealogical histories.

Kū‘ula Educational Goals

• The Kumulipo is the basis for traditional learning
• Be aware and know our genealogical, familial and communal ocean practices and traditions
• Identify and become familiar with resources in our community
• Establish partnerships between students, educators and community
• To identify and know the history, genealogy and place names of the place of setting and its resources
• To utilized and sustain resources through the practice of mālama kai
• To provide experiential and technological learning at sites-out of the classroom
• Increase student learning by bridging practitioners' perspective and traditional Hawaiian practices with the core academic subjects.

Kū‘ula Curriculum Guide

We as people are the descendants of the land and that which comes with it. We as people are not second or third to come into being but perhaps 10 th or 11 th as it states in the Kumulipo. Therefore, we as people are not the dictators of change but are the facilitators of change as dictated by the land and its predecessors. This is the lesson of Kū‘ula. Kū‘ula is the realm of which ocean resources abound. To give back to this realm was the responsibility of those who use this resource. The Kū‘ula curriculum guide displays this form of protocol within these K-12 grade Units. This guide also supplies educators with an appendix, the Puke No‘eau, which in itself is a guide to the Kumulipo.

Please take head to the purpose of this curriculum guide. Conservation, restoration, and land management are not just new concepts to include into our subjects. These are the unmentioned guidelines on which our ancestors lived their lives as progenies of those that reside in the ocean.

The Kū‘ula curriculum was developed over many months at several different schools. It is divided into three sections; Kindergarten through Grade 6, Grades 7-9, and Grades 10-12. Each section has its own focus and curriculum approach while integrating the Kumulipo and Marine Resources.