Growing sugarcane in space?
Growing sugarcane in space?
Alaka‘i O Kaua‘i Charter School students Omar Maes and Ansa Maes, Persais Sasil and Hudson Sherrer need help to get to Florida so their project can take off for a trip to outer space to find out. The students were at the Grove Farm Market in Puhi Saturday, soliciting funds (Marlene Duarte said there were a lot of people leaving the Aunty Manapua tent with big bags of goodies (it’s aunty Penni Taketa’s ‘ohana — Karlee Keale, Lacie Binongial, Krista Torcato, McKenna Torcato — doing manapua, pork hash and more!).
Chef Jakki Nelson had some bee pollen (even had one open for samples, too), and which alien was more interested in those Nonaka Farm baked goods?
How about those bottle rockets? Kudos to Wilcox Elementary School STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) teacher Natsumi Yamasato (she said Comicon has roots on the ground for 2023!) for getting students from the school’s first Science Olympiad team to coordinate a Science Olympiad for the school’s fourth- and fifth-grade students since Kaua‘i Community College is still buttoned up.
It’s the spring equinox! And, it’s also the start of Agriculture Week, now through Saturday, March 26. Ag Day is Tuesday; eat local! Hopefully, Melissa McFerrin-Warrack is back from vacation.
Time to go check out the Pau Hana Market at Kukui Grove Center from 3 p.m. to see what kind of Ag Week excitement is in store. Maybe coach Basilio “Bunga” Fuertes can get some of those popular ‘Ele‘ele School fifth-grader Carmila Udarbe’s vegetable starters to town? Or, how about what the Kaua‘i Ocean Discovery has in store for climate change. The Great Barrier Reef (it’s in Australia) is suffering from too-hot sea water.
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
