Funding for the construction of the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) near the summit of Haleakala on Maui, Hawaii began in FY 2010. Since it is funded with Federal funds, ATST construction is a Federal undertaking that must comply with a number of environmental and historic preservation statutes. The impacts of the ATST construction on the environmental, historical, and cultural assets atop Haleakala were the subject of a nearly five-year study that culminated in a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) that was completed in August 2009.
Since the summit of Haleakala is a ?traditional cultural place? that has cultural and spiritual significance to native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, the FEIS stipulates that the construction of the ATST will have impacts on the spiritual and cultural assets there. A number of mitigation activities designed to minimize or mitigate such impacts are described in the compliance documents and are memorialized in the Record of Decision signed by former NSF Director, Arden L. Bement, Jr. in December 2009. One of these designed to mitigate the direct, major, adverse, and long-term impacts to the summit as a TCP is through education and workforce development. This award provides funding for a ten-year program at the University of Hawaii Maui College that will address the intersection between traditional Native Hawaiian culture and science.
This program will employ STEM educational strategies informed by traditional Native Hawaiian approaches to learning. AIK will create a ?pipeline? of Native Hawaiian STEM students from Maui County secondary schools by identifying and preparing students early in their education, with the support of secondary school math and science teachers and staff. The plan includes development of STEM curricula in the Hawaiian language, STEM faculty development at both secondary and postsecondary levels, and also seeks to engage parents, families, prospective employers, and community members, as well as various Native Hawaiian student networks, through a variety of community partner programs.
Broader Impacts and Importance
By integrating science with Native Hawaiian culture, this plan offers an innovative design for helping native peoples access 21st century economic opportunities. This plan also seeks to demonstrate to the Native Hawaiian and broader community that there exists space within the STEM community for native knowledge, experiences, and ways of learning to make significant contribution. Programs that are developed in this plan will benefit both Native Hawaiian and other Maui County and UHMC students. Finally, the complex social and environmental issues that confront the Hawaiian Islands require that the next generation of leaders be conversant in both science and culture. This plan addresses this need, by bringing together existing STEM scientific, Native Hawaiian cultural, and secondary and post-secondary educational resources to create a cohort of future leaders from an underserved population.
