{"id":111819,"date":"2020-02-25T13:58:19","date_gmt":"2020-02-25T23:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=111819"},"modified":"2020-08-07T12:16:31","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T22:16:31","slug":"imiloa-14-birthday-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/02\/25\/imiloa-14-birthday-celebration\/","title":{"rendered":"\u02bbImiloa birthday celebration encourages caring for Earth and beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"people
ʻImiloa<\/span> decorated its main atrium with discarded fishing net and items found on the beach.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thousands packed the ʻImiloa<\/span> Astronomy Center<\/a> at the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at Hilo<\/a> to celebrate the educational center\u2019s 14th birthday on February 23. Visitors engaged in hands-on activities, planetarium shows, presentations and exhibits on ways to recycle, reuse and reduce waste. This year\u2019s celebration was focused on mālama ʻāina<\/span> or caring for the land.<\/p>\n

“With all that we are experiencing globally, it is ʻImiloa’s<\/span> hope that visitors take with them a heightened awareness of the waste and debris as a result of our collective impact here on Earth and in space,” said ʻImiloa<\/span> executive director, Kaʻiu<\/span> Kimura<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

\"girl
Loa Grabowski, a student at Waiākea Elementary shows off her reusable beeswax wrap<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Visitors learned everything from how to properly decompose food to reusing items that would typically go straight into the trash. Hundreds of keiki were among the approximately 2,000 attendees at ʻImiloa\u2019s<\/span> celebration. Many waited eagerly in line for a chance to make beeswax wraps. The popular do-it-yourself activity required participants to melt down edible wax slathered over fabric. The wrap is meant to replace plastic wrap to cover food.<\/p>\n

Loa Grabowski, 10, said she can\u2019t wait to make use of her creation. “I especially enjoyed making the beeswax wrap because I can use them for my school lunch everyday,” Grabowski said.<\/p>\n

Mālama ʻāina<\/span> educational efforts extended beyond Earth, to outer space. Visitors enjoyed a full dome presentation in ʻImiloa\u2019s<\/span> planetarium which featured a special show, Space Junk, addressing the various satellites orbiting around Earth and the discussions taking place on how to clean-up scattered debris.<\/p>\n

KTA<\/abbr> Super Stores sponsored free admission to ʻImiloa\u2019s<\/span> birthday celebration. The Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Island supermarket chain has been a longtime supporter of the center. <\/p>\n

Merging culture and science<\/h2>\n

Each year, ʻImiloa<\/span> welcomes about 100,000 visitors to its 12,000-square-foot exhibit hall that focuses on educating the public on parallels between Hawaiian culture and western science.<\/p>\n

“I hope visitors come away with more enlightened minds and hearts, knowing that culture is a vital part of science and that science exists deeply in our culture. It is my heartfelt hope for ʻImiloa<\/span> to be a beacon of science and cultural integration that honors the importance of nurturing diversity, showcasing how indigenous culture serves as a vital resource to help propel our community forward and upward,” Kimura said. <\/p>\n

The center\u2019s work was recently highlighted in the Nature Astronomy<\/em> journal.<\/a><\/p>\n

Learn more about the ʻImiloa<\/span> Astronomy Center at UH<\/abbr> News<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

—By Moanikeʻala<\/span> Nabarro<\/em><\/p>\n

\"people<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2,000 visitors celebrated the ʻImiloa<\/span> Astronomy Center\u2019s 14th birthday by learning ways to reduce, reuse and recycle. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[34,292,14],"class_list":["post-111819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-astronomy","tag-imiloa-astronomy-center","tag-uh-hilo","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111819"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124471,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111819\/revisions\/124471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}