THE LAND & ME
By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Haleiwa Elementary students spent some time recently
learning about the land. Danielle Maile, above,
really got into her lesson.
First, you get dirty
Kids learn to respect the land
By Donnica Croot
Star-BulletinIt's a place where children learn about Hawaiian values: aloha (love), ohana (family) and kuleana (responsibility). For four years, Winona Pihana-Chaney has been bringing students to her 23-acre Haleiwa farm, Kuuhomekulaiwi, which means "my beloved homeland."
"This is where children would come to learn the basics of how important the land is, and how we should take care of it and respect it," she said. "My focus of my farm is education only, for the kids to have a place to come and to learn how to really build a taro patch -- how we go about building it, planting it, harvesting it, cooking it, eating it."
By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Winona Pihana-Chaney, who has been teaching students
about Hawaiian values for 15 years via her 23-acre farm,
talked about taro and more.
Pihana-Chaney said usually about 50-60 students at a time come on field trips. She divides them into smaller groups and gives each a chance to do several activities.By the time the students leave, they have learned how to turn a plot of land into a taro patch, and how to take the grown taro and pound it properly. After working in the field, they wash in a pond fed by the cold-water spring that provides the water to the taro patches. They also make lauhala bracelets and learn Hawaiian games, she said.
Several schools come back annually to maintain and harvest patches.
Pihana-Chaney said she hopes to expand activities to include more Hawaiian games, playing the ukulele and learning a dance.
Pihana-Chaney has been a kupuna at Haleiwa Elementary School for five years and has been involved in teaching Hawaiian studies for 15 years.
She allows children from fourth grade through high school to come to the farm and charges $5 per student.
Schools that would like to schedule a day can call Pihana-Chaney at home at 637-8623, or at Haleiwa Elementary at 637-8241.
By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
The students gather around Pihana-Chaney
for instructions.
By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Students get down to the dirty work at hand, er, foot,
trampling back and forth and in the process pulling grass
from what will be a taro patch.
By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Damien Towata-Souza takes his job of
pulling cattle grass seriously.
By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Work seems playful as students march through the
mud from side to side, pulling grass.
By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
After the dirty work is done, students wash their
clothes and themselves in a pond formed by
a cold-water stream.
By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Keiko McGuire, left, and Katrina Dungca learn
the proper way to pound taro.
By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Percy Nakahara learns to weave a lauhala bracelet.
