Pilina 'Āina cultivates ʻāina (land, ocean, that which feeds) education opportunities through Hawaiʻi lifeways to nurture meaningful pilina (relationships) that inspire a desire to live in reciprocity to ʻāina, steward place, and strengthen one’s community.
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For DOE students in Hawaiʻi, there are limited opportunities to build STEM knowledge in natural resource career tracks, such as wildlife biology, conservation management, plant biology, and restoration ecology from a place-based perspective. Both the rise of opportunities in natural resource careers in Hawaiʻi and the strong affinity that many youth on rural Hawaiʻi Island have for learning outdoors was a prime motivation for creating Teaching Change. Based out of Hilo, Hawaiʻi, we are an educational partnership between the Akaka Foundation for Tropical Forests, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and the USDA Forest Service. Our mission is to inspire local youth to be environmental stewards and to pursue post-secondary education and careers in Hawaiʻi in natural resource management.
Explore our programsWe offer overnight and single-day, immersive Field Courses to remote, native forest ecosystems for local middle and high school students. An important goal with these trips is to engage and inspire students to become environmental stewards by exposing them to the natural and cultural heritage of Hawaii’s native forest ecosystems, including the rare and endemic plants and birds that inhabit them.
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Teacher Training Workshops were designed to provide new and veteran teachers with an opportunity to dive deep into the science of climate change and learn new ways to develop and apply hands-on, place-based, immersive curricula in the green spaces of or near their schools. These semester-long workshops include four days of outdoor/indoor activities, lectures, and teacher presentations with time split between Hilo classrooms and the Hākalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge.
learn more about our workshops