To understand our common community of the Nu’uanu neighborhood surrounding our Hongwanji Mission School campus, we “walked the walk” to experience firsthand what we could find in the block closest to our school. All of our students live in different parts of O‘ahu and our school is our common community that we don’t know much about.
Students learned about the neighborhood in class using Google Maps as a pre-lesson. On the day of the field trip, all 7th graders, our two HCYP Fellows, and our three HCYP faculty advisors walked together on the predetermined route with three maps to fill out as worksheets of our observations. Students were challenged to look for the Invisible River, the Caged Tree, religious and educational organizations, and the Consul General of Japan.
On the first road, we didn’t see any people until we stopped at Bangkok Chef and spoke to the owner who had his restaurant there for twenty years. We took note of businesses like the food places, laundromat, banks, Starbucks, 7-Elevens, gas stations, and bus stops. We stopped at O’Reilly Auto Parts for their air-conditioning and to see a store that no one knew about. We found evidence of ditches for the rivers where they used to flow, the Hungry Lion tree and other big trees blocking the sidewalks, the Chinese Buddhist Temple that was all locked up, the schools and churches, and the Japanese Consulate.
For the next month, the 7th graders worked in groups of their choice to research the four selected areas: water pathways now and in the past; trees that have been preserved in our area and down to Foster Gardens; the Chinese Buddhist Temple who we hope to connect with; and the Consul General of Japan that might be a useful support for our 8th grade Japan Study Tour.
We brought samples of the Waiwai Maps and copies of the research completed by the four groups. Next steps: plan field trips to learn more about the four areas and find a project that will help our community. As 8th graders, the same students will decide on field trips to learn more about charitable work that might already be done by our community that our students and HMS families can join. Possible ideas are common service projects by the Chinese Buddhist Temple and Soto Academy and HMS and planting native plants in Nu’uanu by joining existing environmental groups who need volunteers to plant in the Nu’uanu ahupua’a. We also want to join the BWA again for regular Blood Drives and meet other groups that are part of the Hawaii Honpa Hongwanji Betsuin organization who our students could partner with as service projects.
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