COVID-19 curriculum aims to reshape public health education
The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted educators in Hawaiʻi to provide a historical look at contagious diseases in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific. An interdisciplinary curriculum, COVID-19, the Latest Hawaiian Epidemic: Educating for Health, Responsibility, and Resilience Through a Place-Based, Cultural Lens, that compares and contrasts Hawaiian historical timelines and science phenomena associated with COVID-19, is the brainchild of University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa College of Education Curriculum Studies Professor Pauline Chinn.
The curriculum has multiple purposes: to understand COVID-19 in historical contexts, examine leaders’ actions in a crisis, and teach students about ways to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19. Chinn, graduate students Kaleolani Hanohano and Alison Yasuoka, and Hawaiian translator graduate assistants Riley Wells and Kyle Nakatsuka, developed a series of lessons that include: hands-on activities, simulations, models, metrics, interactive discussions, historical resources, Hawaiian language newspaper articles, and up-to-date information on COVID-19 that can be used in schools and communities.
Hanohano’s lesson focuses on Princess Liliʻuokalani’s 1881 quarantine of Oʻahu that stopped the spread of smallpox to other islands. Liliʻuokalani’s decisive action to shut down parts of the economy in favor of health is consistent with the Hawaiian Kingdom’s response to introduced diseases and cultural practices embedded in kapu aloha.
The COVID-19 curriculum and a series of interactive workshops are made possible with support from a National Science Foundation (NSF) award for teacher leadership and place-based curriculum development. With support from Papa Ola Lokahi and NSF, Yasuoka and Wells also created the Kūpaʻa Collective website to empower community members with the science, public health, educational and community knowledge to move beyond COVID-19 toward healthy, resilient futures.
Read the full story from University of Hawai’i here.