Day Four

March 8, 2007, Thursday


Most likely, if you live in the outdoors (or Alaska), you would probably think camping is living the outdoors with a sleeping bag and a tent. For us in Hawaii, it’s a whole different idea. Instead of sleeping in a tent, we slept in a cabin at Pu’u Wa’a Wa’a. There’s running water, kitchen, nice porch, and it’s two stories high.

At once in the morning, our ASOF group and the local students joined us for a hike on a nearby grassy hill. Since there were so many ranch animals (cows, sheep), we met a lot of their waste. About every 10 feet, there were way too many fresh cow patties lying inside the path. It was disgusting! We were cautious about not stepping into the large manure.

While dodging, the ASOF group brought along probes to analyze different conditions (temperature, UV level, oxygen level). The whole group finally got a chance to successfully use the ASOF probes. As for myself, Wayne, I worked along with Ryne (pronounced the same as Ryan) to study the temperature and oxygen level. We studied the oxygen level at the bottom and peak of the hill. We also analyzed the temperature of the road and the side of the road. The temperature was studied at the bottom of the hill, a couple times throughout the hike, and at the peak of hill. It was a great opportunity for us to practice probe use and dodging droppings.

The local high school students were surveying the different native plants and trees around the trail. Every time they saw a native specie, they would take data of type of plant, any damage done to it, size, status, and location of the plant (elevation, longitude, latitude). I thought it was interesting what they were doing.

After the hike, we headed back to the cabins. When we got there, some locals wanted us to be able to make some Hawaiian food. We go the chance to prepare our own local food. Basically, we placed different type of local meat (steak, chicken, pork, butter fish) into tightly wrapped large leaves. After it was done cooking, the food was delicious and everything was edible (including the leaves).

The whole day was exhausting, but we were glad to be able to actually start using the ASOF probes. Alan also taught the students the basic use of iWeb. We’ll be using the software to help us create our blog sites. Hopefully, we’ll get enough practice to be able to teach the students back in Alaska.