Agriculture and Environmental Awareness Day shines a light on Hawaiʻi’s agricultural industry and shows keiki how local food production connects communities and the environment. It not only lets kids see where their food comes from; it opens their eyes to possible careers in ag and environmental management, showing them how they can contribute to this important work.
At this year’s event, held again at CTAHR’s Pearl City Urban Garden Center, about 25 presenters and exhibitors joined CTAHR to offer interactive exhibits, presentations on xeriscape gardening and fruit growing, and displays on nutrition for wellness and invasive species. The kids marveled at—and got to taste!—all the strange and delicious fruits that can be grown in the Islands, from the enormous, spiky, stinky durian to the mouth-puckeringly sour Otaheite gooseberry. They contemplated the implications of an ice cream bean and investigated a model of an egg-laying chicken and the skull of a cow.
Most importantly, they had the kind of interactive fun that helps to cement real learning. Hawai‘i’s future ag production is in good hands! More photos can be found at the college’s Flickr site, and you can check out a video of the event here.