VOLCANO — Science shows the climate is changing, and for Keaau High School teacher Eva Anderson, the toughest part is relaying that — optimistically — to students.
“We have to communicate a vitally important thing to them without having them be so demoralized,” Anderson said. “ … I think that’s the hardest part for teachers — giving kids a hopeful path forward, and making them feel empowered.”
On Friday, Anderson was among nearly 100 educators in attendance at the sixth annual Hawaii Environmental Education Symposium.
The yearly symposium, headed by the nonprofit Hawaii Environmental Education Alliance, aims to foster professional ties between formal teachers and “non-formal practitioners,” such as those who lead field trips or visit classrooms. It also strives to give teachers a few more tools to use when teaching students about environmental and conservation issues.
The three-day event, which ends today, is located at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, its first time on a Neighbor Island.
Symposium activities run the gamut. For example, attendees are taking part in a smattering of workshops touching on current issues such as rapid ohia death and little fire ants, to name a few. They’re also heading off-site today to Kekaha Kai State Park to explore anchialine pools, and on Thursday they drove up Mauna Loa for a tour of the observatory which has collected atmospheric change data for decades.
On Thursday, attendees also caught a screening of “Chasing Coral,” a documentary about coral bleaching, and Friday morning, they heard from Chip Fletcher, a prominent faculty member at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who teaches about climate change.
Climate change is a “top-level, overarching theme” of this year’s symposium, said Liz Foote, symposium coordinator, as it “overlaps pretty much everything” — particularly in the current political climate.
Earlier this week, Hawaii became the first state to enact legislation implementing the 2015 Paris climate accord. The move came less than a week after President Trump said he would withdraw the United States from the agreement, which is an effort to mitigate climate change by keeping global temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius while adapting to ongoing climate effects.
“It’s easy to be pessimistic, especially when you hear the data,” Foote said. “But the fact that people are becoming aware and want to take action and asking ‘How do I take action?” It shows there are reasons to be optimistic.
“We’d love for people to come away (from the symposium) with a better understanding about how climate change does effect them in their every day lives and it’s something we should be paying more attention to. Because it’s happening and it’s happening now and we need to change how we go about our business.”
Most symposium attendees this year hailed from the Big Island. About one-third were formal school teachers such as Anderson, who said she hopes to see more school teachers attend in the future.
She said many teachers don’t always know about the resources available to help them teach about environmental issues — for example, the national park offers free field trips for fourth-graders, she said.
“There’s so much,” said Anderson, who’s attended the symposium for multiple years. “The community, nonprofits and science, and conservation organizations are just trying so hard to get this information into the schools.
“Coming here, you just get so many amazing ideas … I’ve just realized there are dozens of organizations dying to help you with education. This past year, I’ve felt like I had no limitations as far as what I wanted to do or teach — there was someone to help with any resource I wanted.”
Email Kirsten Johnson at kjohnson@hawaiitribune-herald.com.