Pomaika'i and Kula Elementary Schools - Keiki-Inspired Covid Awareness Project April & May 2021

Pomaika'i and Kula Elementary Schools - Keiki-Inspired Covid Awareness Project, April & May 2021

“Ho’okāhi ‘iliwai o ka like” - Wield the Paddles Together  ~ ʻŌlelo Noʻeau

 How do you find your way when you donʻt have a navigatorʻs chair? You focus on our keiki, their messages, their voices, to guide our way into our collective kuleana with the spirit of aloha. As Hawaiʻi opens our arms to our visitors, we wanted to protect all, from keiki to kupuna. Itʻs a kākou thing; weʻre all in this together. How do we mālama each other so we can all enjoy our Hawaiʻi, our place? 

Fourth grade students from Pōmaika’i & Kula Elementary Schools worked closely with two teaching artists and a veteran arts integration educator from Hawaiʻi to design a public health campaign that is meant to engage tourists and residents more deeply in Hawaiian cultural values and a help connect them to place with the expressed goal of respecting and caring for one another and the Hawaiian Islands during the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Hawaiʻi educator, Rae Takemoto worked with teachers and school administrators on curriculum and coordination. Teaching artist, Melinda Caroll engaged students to compose and record their own original song. And then, teaching artist, Shelley Toon Lindberg guided students to create a stop-motion animation film to bring their song to life visually. 

Pomaika'i 

Our goals were to:

  • Lead the students into a personal relationship with the garden during the process of songwriting creativity
  • Help the students develop a sense of place in our fragile island home and our place in the world.
  • Create new stories that deepened their understanding of garden-based learning.

The residency for the school began in September 2017, culminating in a fully recorded physical CD and public performance by the students and teachers for the families and nearby community on the school grounds in May of 2018.

Want to host a songwriting residency with your students? Check out our songwriting curriculum and then get in touch, we'd love to support you!

Meanwhile, You can listen to our album project here on Spotify!