Importance

Hawaiian chants that begin with the word Hulihia—which means overturned, overthrown, and upheaved—tell the stories of major volcanic activity of the Hawaiian islands. They describe earthquakes, leaping fire, and lava flows. Western and Indigenous Hawaiian scientists and researchers are working together to combine their geologic knowledge in order to both better understand historical eruptions and forecast future hazards. The Pelehonuamea Project (or Pele Project for short) is continuing this collaboration by integrating Indigenous Hawaiian volcanic knowledge and practices with computational thinking to engage students in learning about volcanoes and the risks and impacts of volcanic eruptions on their communities. Through a research-practice partnership (RPP) with a Hawaiian middle school, the team is co-designing, developing, and piloting an innovative approach to develop and research curriculum materials.

The Pele Project will create a computational model called the LavaCoder that will allow students to use visual block-based coding to model lava eruptions from the Mauna Loa volcano. Students will model and explore the environmental variables that influence the volcanic lava flow system, define the relationships among pertinent environmental factors, create visualizations of lava flow from a volcanic vent, and analyze the data produced by the model.

We will weave together Indigenous Hawaiian and Western geoscience knowledge by integrating computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) as necessary tools for conducting authentic scientific inquiry by integrating student-derived ethnographic studies of volcanic hazards and risks to set the context for learning and engaging Indigenous Hawaiian students in CS and CT practices through block coding in order to conduct computational simulation-based scientific investigations. The project aims to broaden Indigenous Hawaiian students’ sense of agency and educational relevance in computing and geoscience to better prepare them for diverse job opportunities.

Research

The Pele Project will conduct research on students’ CT and CS learning and interest, science content knowledge, and the development of their sense of agency and educational relevance during the co-design process. The RPP co-design process will serve as both a method of curriculum development and a method to investigate the following jointly developed research questions:

• In what ways does incorporating students’ ethnographic narratives of Hawaiian values, knowledge, and experiences of volcanic eruptions and students’ participation in the co-design of a CS and CT geoscience curriculum module support the development of students’ sense of agency and perceptions of educational relevance?
• How does using a culturally and geographically relevant CS and CT geoscience module affect students’ interest in and attitude towards computing and computational thinking?
• To what extent does using the CS and CT geoscience module build students’ computational thinking skills, computing practices, and geoscience knowledge?