Community Support to Maui County

Left: PDC’s Mike Napier, Pam Cowher, and Jim Buika hosted 20 Native Hawaiian high school students to teach them about Geographic Information Systems and natural hazards in partnership with the Akimeka Maui Digital Bus and Maui Community College’s Na Pua No’eau Super Enrichment Program for Gifted Native Hawaiian Children.
Right: Students explored the Hawaii edition of PDC’s Natural Hazards Atlas and gained experience with hands-on computer learning in Akimeka’s Digital Bus.

As part of an ongoing commitment to communities, the Pacific Disaster Center has continued to support local schools and summer student programs in 2005. These efforts are geared towards increasing public awareness about disaster mitigation, illustrating how technology can be used to increase disaster preparedness, and highlighting opportunities offered by high-technology careers.

“PDC’s continual involvement with Maui’s high school and community college students is one of the most satisfying and rewarding parts of our job,” said PDC Senior Manager Jim Buika. “It is extremely important to us to support high tech career development for Hawaii.”

As one of this year’s many examples, PDC dedicated a Saturday to partner with Akimeka Maui Digital Bus and Maui Community College’s Na Pua No’eau Super Enrichment Program for Gifted Native Hawaiian Children, teaching 20 high-school students about Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology and natural hazards.

The students spent a morning at PDC participating in a tsunami exercise, and learning about GIS—both how it is used in disaster mitigation planning, and how it is a growing profession in today’s technology sector. The students also used the Hawaii edition of PDC’s Natural Hazards Atlas, (atlas.pdc.org) to find emergency shelters in the event that a tsunami alert is issued for Hawaii.

“The students were extremely interested in the exercise and were concerned about tsunamis because they know it can happen here,” recounted PDC GIS Analyst Mike Napier. “It quickly becomes evident that community education makes a strong impact on the younger generation.”

The students also learned how to use National Geographic navigation and topographic software to understand the concept of elevation contours and their importance for tsunami evacuation procedures. They used information they gathered from the GIS technology session in conjunction with the Digital Bus—utilizing laptop computers and topographic software to create and print their own personal evacuation routes. Click here to learn more about the Digital Bus.

PDC continues to partner with a variety of other schools and community-based organizations to provide “hands on” experience with disaster-related technologies for weather, modeling, and GIS. Recent examples include:

• In May, teaming with the Project EAST (Environmental And Spatial Technology) enrichment program—sponsored by the Maui Economic Development Board’s Women in Technology Program—to host nearly twenty students from Baldwin High School.

• In June, partnering with the Upward Bound program to host nearly fifty local students. PDC also hosted college-bound Native Hawaiians participating in Maui Community College’s Ke Alahaka Program for Maui, Molokai, and Lanai.

• In July, hosting young students from the Summer Camp coordinated by Tech Projects, LLC.

• In August, PDC plans a “repeat performance” with Akimeka’s Digital Bus and will host 20 high school students participating in the annual Women in Technology Program, sponsored by and in partnership with the Maui Economic Development Board.

For more information about PDC’s ongoing community support programs, contact Senior Manager Jim Buika at jbuika@pdc.org, or Chief Operating Officer Ray Shirkhodai at rshirkhodai@pdc.org.

PDC software engineer Steve Kunitzer trains students about web-based publishing
as part of Maui Community College’s Ke Alahaka Program.