KILAUEA — Chanel Tremblay, a student at Kilauea School, had no problem crawling onto an earthmover, a single-axle dump truck, during beekeeper Mark Anderson’s presentation at Career Day yesterday. But the thought of getting up close and personal with honeybees
KILAUEA — Chanel Tremblay, a student at Kilauea School, had no problem crawling onto an earthmover, a single-axle dump truck, during beekeeper Mark Anderson’s presentation at Career Day yesterday.
But the thought of getting up close and personal with honeybees seemed to be a deal-breaker for the third-grader.
“Oh, they have stingers,” she said, cringing.
Anderson, a returning presenter, was one of more than a dozen community professionals who took some time out of their schedule to share their work with students.
He showed the class how he uses smoke from banana leaves to “hide” from the bees and offered a taste of honey straight from the hive — by which point a honeybee was able to coax a smile from Tremblay as it crawled on her finger.
County recycling specialist Emily Ishida, another presenter, realized how informative the event was for the kids.
“Do you realize that some students don’t know where the trash goes?” she said following her three presentations. “They think trash goes to the trash can, and beyond that, don’t know where it ends up.”
Ishida brought along samples of the different recyclable containers covered under the Hi5 program, stressing upon the students that every container is recycled is one less that ends up in the Kekaha Landfill.
“That has only about a year and a half before it fills up and then we need to build another one,” she said.
Fred Rose, the school’s principal, said the professionals who turned out included movie director Mike Mendez as well as professionals Todd Harrison, Michelle Rundgren, Sarah Mangold, Phillip Guy, Barry Brun, Tim Terrazas, Sonja Vargas and Titus Kinimaka.
Francesco Garripoli, who spoke on health and wellness, had the advantage of bringing over two visiting monks as well as a certified acupuncturist for his presentation, and Carol Everett of the Kaua‘i Humane Society had the help of Lana, her mascot, in capturing the children’s attention.
“I don’t keep track of how many Career Days we’ve done,” Everett said.
Perhaps the biggest impression was made by the Kaua‘i Police Department and Lt. Mike Contrades, who showed up with not only a SWAT team but the new mobile Incident Command Center.
Students had an opportunity to try on some of the gear used by SWAT officers and see some of the technology used, including a telescoping camera that was homed in on the school’s parking lot.
“This is all part of their jobs,” a teacher told her students who were wide-eyed at all of the activity taking place.
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@kauaipubco.com.
