LIHU‘E — School principals, who represent a number of schools in the Kaua‘i Area Complex, were pleasantly interrupted by Corteva Agriscience’s Laurie Yoshida and Ryan Oyama on Wednesday.
The schools — King Kaumuali‘i Elementary School, Kalaheo Elementary School, Kaua‘i High School and Waimea Canyon Middle School and Waimea High School — all received their Corteva Agriscience grant moneys as part of the $35,000 total awarded by Corteva Agriscience for 2023.
Another school, the Alaka‘i O Kaua‘i Charter School, also earned an award for its school garden project in Kahili Valley.
The King Kaumuali‘i Elementary School will use the funds to fuel a science initiative program aimed at building interest in the field of science for students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
Kalaheo Elementary School will also utilize its award for students, who will be obtaining and combining information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment with a focus on technology to improve lives and the community.
Kaua‘i High School students will be learning about using animals as a consistent form of food production and how this provides food security by hands-0n building of shelters for the school’s chickens and goats. They will also be involved in building feed troughs for the goats and hen boxes for the chicken tractors.
Waimea Canyon Middle School will utilize its award for applied computer science and coding through robotics.
Waimea High School will use the money to expand on this by increasing the number of students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) through participation in the robotics team through the providing of mentoring, training, and practical experience in designing, building, and testing robots to compete in the national FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics competition.
Other organizations receiving grants from the giving campaign include the Hawai‘i Foodbank Kaua‘i, which will use the funds for its Food 4 Keiki and Keiki Pantry food programs that, in last year, were able to serve more than 2,200 keiki and distribute more than 82,000 pounds of food bags and healthy snacks.
The Kaua‘i Independent Food Bank will utilize the Corteva Agriscience funding to support the operations of its Backpack Program that provides food for keiki during the weekends and other days when school is not in session.
Garden Island Resource Conservation and Development, known as Garden Island RC&D, will be utilizing its funding for outreach to the local community about conservation measures, it’s risks and benefits, that impact native forest species, and forest birds.
The Kaua‘i Community Science Center (KCSC) will be focusing on developing novel ways to reduce plastic use by using equipment and resources it currently has. The KCSC is also open to other student-inspired initiatives and plastic use is an initial mechanism to inspire student participation.
The YWCA of Kaua‘i earned funding for a proposed education project that aims to address the unique educational needs of children residing in shelter by providing social-emotional learning and enrichment opportunities by providing activitiesfor the children both on- and off-site.
The Ag Leadership Foundation will use the funding for its program and the North Shore Economic Vitality Program will utilize its funding for on-the-ground training of GroupGAP, a digital record-keeping app, and Heavy Connect, designed to collect food safety data, apps that enable more farmers to pass the USDA HGAP audit.
