Story and video by Kimberlee Bassford, Gen XIII, Windward CC Photos by Jamie Sickel, Gen XIII, Kapi‘olani CC For our third meeting, we ventured to Kap‘iolani Community College where Jackie and Jamie brought the theme of sustainability to life. Sustainability is a buzz word these days for obvious reasons: we live on islands, we’re running out of fossil fuels, and we’re changing the planet with disastrous consequences. Sustainability is also a UH System-wide initiative with new programs and classes cropping up on all campuses. The activities of the day, however, illuminated how multidimensional sustainability can be and how simply one can put it into practice.
During our breakfast potluck, we also got to meet some past WoLCs from Kapi‘olani. Joining us were Laure Burke (Gen V), Vern Ogata (Gen VI), ‘Iwalani Koide (Gen VII), LaVache Scanlan (Gen VII), Wendy Kuntz (Gen X), Annie Thomas (Gen XI) and Kelli Nakamura (Gen XII). We then learned about how sustainability can bring seemingly disparate disciplines together. We met KapCC’s Sustainability Project team, comprised of Dr. Kathleen Ogata (Chemistry), Ronald Takahashi and Chef David Brown (Culinary) and our own Jackie Lindo (Economics), who won the 2018 UH President’s Green Project Award. For more on this impressive project, visit the KCC Sustainability Project page.
Ron then shared what he and the culinary program have been doing to create a sustainable food service initiative at the college such as using biodegradable disposables, converting to LED lights, planting edible gardens, composting food waste and using waste cooking oil to generate biodiesel fuel.
Jackie’s and Beau’s presentations also connected to our service-learning for the day as we got to make our own candles from glycerin. The Kapi‘olani CC ceramics students generously donated some of their beautiful work (thank you!). It was a fun process of pouring various chemicals, including what would have otherwise been waste from the creation of biofuel, bringing our mixture to a boil and then letting it cool in ceramic candle holders. We also got to experience other aspects of The Sustainability Project. Chef Dave Brown took us to see the edible gardens on campus where we got to taste finger limes … zesty! He also showed us the forced-air composter and vermi-composting (earthworm composting) bins. On our way back to the classroom, we spotted the Cooking Up a Rainbow food truck, which serves as a mobile, hands-on classroom for culinary students and delivers healthy meals to keiki at six meal sites out in the community during the summer. The campus tour and hands-on activities were definitely inspiring. But hearing more from Jackie about her class and also talking with KapCC’s sustainability curriculum coordinator (and WoLC Gen VII) Krista Hiser made me think more seriously about the ways I could incorporate sustainability in my own teaching. For instance, I loved how Jackie takes her students on the Tour de Trash, where they follow the path of opala from blue, green and grey bins to their respective sorting, composting and waste-to-energy facilities. And Krista made it seem like a no-brainer to consider making courses at least S-Related (indicating that the course includes a significant assignment related to sustainability), if not S-Focused (meaning sustainability is a major theme of the course). During lunch, we got to business and debriefed HSSI and started brainstorming our cohort project, a process we’ll continue at our next gathering. I left the meeting with a list of notes on how I might revamp my courses to incorporate sustainability issues. And sustainability is potentially one of the areas our cohort wants to explore for its project. Thanks Jackie and Jamie for planting the seeds! Special thanks to our Wo drivers, Wendy Kuntz (Gen X), Annie Thomas (Gen XI) and Kelli Nakamura (Gen XII) for airport transportation, the past generation Kapi‘olani Wos for joining us in our potluck breakfast, our amazing faculty and student presenters, Kaili Chun and her ceramics students for donating their beautiful cups, and Kōkua Hawai‘i Foundation for donating reusable sporks!
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