Meaningful Experience trips is just one of many ways that CTAHR students gain a broader perspective through extracurricular activities, clubs and events.
The 14th Meaningful Experience took 20 students and staff, including CTAHR Dean Nicholas Comerford, to Kona on the Island of Hawai‘i, where they packed a lot of adventures and team building into two activity-packed days.
The group toured the college’s Mealani Research Station, where they learned about tea cultivation, picked their own tea leaves and heard about Mealani’s award-winning cattle operation. They hiked to the top of a 110-year-old flume system and floated through irrigation ditch, learning about the history of the island’s sugar plantations and irrigation flumes, as well as the area’s natural resources.
Day two took them to the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai‘i Authority’s Ocean Science and Technology Park, where a massive Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion unit uses temperature differentials to generate power, and many research and commercial facilities use the deep, cold sea water before it is returned to the ocean. A highlight was their visit to an octopus farm, where they got to feed amd play with the gentle, mischievous creatures. The trip concluded wth a visit to the UCC Coffee Farm, where they harvested coffee berries and saw how the beans are roasted and fermented, before boarding the interisland flight back to Honolulu.
View photos of the trip