Education

Despite months of planning, public outreach, and fundraising for an international competition in Washington D.C., "Team Hawaii" from the University of Hawaii has withdrawn from the event. The UH Solar Decathlon team Executive Committee, which includes participating students and members from Honolulu Community College and UH Mānoa, decided that the timing and financial challenges were too large to risk further investment without the guaranteed delivery of the house at this year's competition.

NASA and the State of Hawai'i have agreed to collaborate on a wide range of activities to promote America's human and robotic exploration of space. The partnership also will contribute to the development of education programs and foster economic opportunities including new, high-tech jobs. Governor Neil Abercrombie and NASA Associate Deputy Administrator Rebecca Keiser signed a two-year agreement, formally called a non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement Annex, during a ceremony today in the Governor’s Office.

A feasibility study to determine if vog forecasts are achievable and useful is being made available to the public through a new website hosted by the School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. The website is a product of the Vog Measurement and Prediction (VMAP) project. Principal investigator for the VMAP project is Steven Businger, who along with lead vog modeler Roy Huff are members of UH Mānoa’s Department of Meteorology.

An alliance of Waialua High and Waiakea High Schools won the 2nd Annual American School in Japan VEX Robotics Tournament held today in Tokyo, hosted by the American School in Japan. Two teams of students and coaches from Waialua, Oahu, three teams from Waiakea and one team from Kohala, Big Island, competed against teams from Tokyo, Yokohama, Taiwan and Thailand. Waialua High School also won the Best Build award.

Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL), in collaboration with Mentor Interactive, has released Cosmos Chaos! an educational game for the Nintendo DS console that targets vocabulary learning in science, social studies and mathematics. Resulting from a U.S. Department of Education grant focused on the development, delivery, and evaluation of a supplemental vocabulary instructional game for Nintendo DS, this digital game-based vocabulary enrichment program is designed to increase 4th grade struggling readers’ word knowledge and use of word learning strategies to help improve comprehension.

Günther Hasinger, an expert in astrophysical studies whose work has been instrumental in the operation of x-ray satellites and the development of future observatories, has been appointed director of the Institute for Astronomy (IfA) at UH Mānoa, effective January 2, 2011. Hasinger is currently the scientific director at the Max-Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching, near Munich, Germany.

The Hawai‘i State Science Olympiad (HSSO), a science education non-profit organization associated with the National Science Olympiad, has received a federal grant award totaling over $300,000. The award, part of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund...

More than 20 million people in the U.S., and many more worldwide, who have been exposed to asbestos are at risk of developing mesothelioma, a malignant cancer of the membranes that cover the lungs and...

The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa will hold a Physics and Astronomy Open House from 8:30 a.m. to noon on Saturday, November 21. Eleven sites—including Watanabe Hall, Krauss Annex and the Physical Science Building—will...

Saunders Hall on the UH Mānoa campus served as the demonstration site today for a new renewable energy testbed featuring innovative "micro-inverter" technology. The "Kumu Kit" solar panel system was donated by Hawaii Energy Connection, LLC...