Waianae High juniors discuss cooling designs for portable classrooms. From left arfe Diana Peppers, teacher Naidah Gamurot, Shantel Hose, Doglas Kaman and Tyra Sojot. Photo by Terry Luke, Star-Bulletin

But Waianae High School, on the sun-baked Leeward Coast, and stuck next to the asphalt smelters of the state's never-ending Kamehameha Highway re-paving, is really on the hot seat. Last fall, while the islands sweated out a heat wave, the Star-Bulletin checked temperatures around Oahu, and discovered that temperatures in Waianae's portable classrooms often reached 95 degrees.

There aren't a lot of places that will allow that kind of cooking. And sure enough, Waianae teachers report that students sweltering under these conditions are irritable and sleepy - and so are the teachers.

What can be done? Cooler heads at the Star-Bulletin devised a special project for the school, and the newspaper will help underwrite expenses. Project Portable, as the kids dubbed it, is designed to help the kids help themselves.

In a way, it's like a giant science-fair experiment: Is there a cheap, easy way of lowering temperatures in the portables? The only rule is that the kids can't alter the portables in any nonreversible manner.

It helps that Waianae's new principal Hazel Sumile is energetic and supportive, and that Waianae is a School-Community Based Management campus, otherwise the Departments of Education and Accounting and General Services might put the kibosh on the experiment, as they have in previous attempts by parents and community groups to improve a school's environment.

The truth is out there, as they say on "The X Files." But the students will have to discover it for themselves, and in a real-world scenario. This includes identifying the problem, researching possible solutions, developing a hypothesis, building models, testing theories, recording their work, quantifying the results, modifying theories to fit the data, applying the theory to a full-scale mock-up, again testing the results and defining the end result, as well as getting help from the community, government agencies and private businesses. Just like real science.

With luck, the net result won't just be cooler classrooms. It will also be a sense of empowerment, that students, educators and administrators can work together for the common good.

"We never knew we could do anything like this," said student Emi Endo, 18. "I thought we were stuck with what we have. It's going to be a challenge just to stop thinking that way."

Endo is in Naidah Gamurot's science honors class, upon which the weight of the project is falling. Many other students are getting involved as well. Communications classes to make sure the experiments are recorded, computer students to chart and share the data, English classes to write up the experiment, journalism classes to report it, maybe even shop classes to build the heavy stuff.

According to DOE facilities manager Lester Chuck, upgrades to portables, or "temporaries" as they're now known, are lagging behind schedule, "driven by not-enough money. We're trying everything we can within our financial means." This includes a plan to place ceiling fans in all of the state's portables.

"Unfortunately, the Leeward Coast doesn't get as much help as it might need, and it's really hot out there," said Chuck. "We are experimenting at Kapolei with two air-conditioned portables."

Waianae High, as it turns out, gets slightly more dollars per student than many other Oahu public schools. This doesn't mean that corners aren't cut. Gamurot's science classroom, which at first glance seems modern, has buckled floors, emergency drain outlets with no drains behind them, sinks that empty into five-gallon buckets and a chemical storage room that gets so hot that chemicals sweat out of their bottles and on occasion even explode.

The Portable Project will need help from the community, and suggestions on possible solutions. Right now, they need 15 to 20 washing-machine boxes and some cheap thermometers. The boxes are needed to model a miniature portable environment. The trick is figuring out how to keep the boxes from absorbing heat, and once it's in there, getting rid of it.

Call Hazel Sumile or Naidah Gamurot at the school, 696-4244, or the Star-Bulletin at 525-8669 if you can provide thermometers, washing machine boxes or a cool suggestion. And stay tuned. As the project proceeds, we'll bring you updates.

February 29: [Students Look For Solutions] [Portables Now 'Temporaries']
March 29: [Search For Cooler Portables] [Astro Foil Insulation]
May 27: [Students Test Models]