Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

So I had conversation with some of my students the other day that left me a bit bemused. They were talking about going to the beach and getting cordoned off because there was a monk seal basking on the sand. There was a collective growl of irritation. One kid voiced it: "Just these STUPID endangered animals! And don't even get me started on the Shearwaters!" I.... didn't have an answer to that. And we were really supposed to be talking about Macbeth. And scanning iambic pentameter. So I filed "My endangered Hawaiian students hate endangered Hawaiian animals" to my mental Think About Later shelf. So now I am thinking about it. And I'm a bit stumped. Why do my students, who are striving with all of their might to preserve an indigenous language and culture on the brink of extinction, have nothing but contempt for conservation efforts for indigenous plants and animals? Is this something just with my students? Is this a local vs. non-local problem? Is th...

Evolution in Hawaii: A Supplement to Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science

Five and a half million years ago, Ha'upu mountain was the molten heart of a new caldera. Kipukai was  another erupting core.  When the oceanic plate shifted, and the hotspot venting lava with it, Waialeale became the active volcano, and Ha'upu began to succumb to the wind and waves. Two million years later, as the volcanic activity settled down, pu'u-- or small cinder cones-- erupted from the volcanic plain all around. Enormous sand dunes piled up on the south shore of Kaua'i, in the wet shadow of Ha'upu-- no longer a living volcano.  The years layered the soft round sand, and the rain leached the minerals out. The dunes lithified into limestone. Ribbons of minerals twined under the sand: olivine and silicates. Cathedrals beneath the hard packed mineral protected hollows full of ancient ocean sand. Ice ages came and went-- the polar ice caps grew and froze the earth's water. Water leaching through the limestone formed intricate stalactites under lithifie...