{"id":221817,"date":"2025-09-11T14:44:57","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T00:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=221817"},"modified":"2025-09-11T14:57:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T00:57:03","slug":"from-homeschool-to-high-level-research-windward-cc-peter-scott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/09\/11\/from-homeschool-to-high-level-research-windward-cc-peter-scott\/","title":{"rendered":"From homeschool to high-level research: Windward CC<\/abbr> student analyzes sinking Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"Scott
Scott doing an electrical survey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Windward Community College student Peter Scott, 18, has always been curious about the natural world. This propelled him into a nationally competitive summer research opportunity—the Earth Science on Volcanic Islands Research Experience for Undergraduates<\/a> (REU<\/abbr>) at the University of UH<\/abbr> at M\u0101noa.<\/p>\n

\"People
Scott and Aryal on field trip<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Out of more than 500 applicants across the country, only 10 were selected for the National Science Foundation funded program—and Scott was the one of only two students from Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>. <\/p>\n

“It was really a cool experience. I’m very glad I got to participate in it. It was a big confidence boost for me,” Scott said. “I got to work with a lot of really, really smart people. And it definitely helped me figure out this is something I want to do. I want to do research, I want to do science, I want to continue in this field.”<\/p>\n

Sinking land<\/h2>\n

Scott\u2019s project focused on why some areas of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> are sinking faster than others. By testing with an electrical current, he found that highly saturated soils and large amounts of fill may be driving subsidence in certain regions. <\/p>\n

“It’s important to know why an area is subsiding, because that can affect how you want to plan for development,” he said. “It can affect whether or not you need to put in flood mitigation measures, or whether or not you need to change how you’re building infrastructure in an area, or whether you even want to build infrastructure in an area.”<\/p>\n

Windward CC<\/abbr> as a high schooler<\/h2>\n
\"Equipment
Haroon and Scott setting up experiment at at Kahauiki Village<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Homeschooled since fourth grade, Scott enrolled in Windward CC<\/abbr>\u2019s early college program in 2023, while still in high school. <\/p>\n

“I really enjoyed the smaller class sizes,” he said. “Going to a community college is a great place to start.”<\/p>\n

One of Scott\u2019s instructors, Arjun Aryal, told him about the REU<\/abbr> program. <\/p>\n

“Peter’s curiosity and drive for the natural sciences are impressive,” said Aryal. “As a student from Windward Community College, he met the objectives of the program: providing research experience to students from institutions with limited STEM opportunities.”<\/p>\n

Aryal and UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa Assistant Researcher Amir Haroon served as Scott\u2019s advisors for his research project.<\/p>\n

Scott expects to earn an associate\u2019s degree in the spring, then plans to continue at UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa in the fall with interests ranging from geology to botany and agriculture. One thing he is sure about his long-term goals: “I want to stay in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>, ideally, and work in the field where I can be outdoors.”<\/p>\n

—by Kelli Abe Trifonovitch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Scott earned a spot in an elite national science program to study Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s shifting land.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":221828,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[1047,1187,313,71,9,1450,66],"class_list":["post-221817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-early-college","tag-earth-science","tag-stem","tag-uh-community-colleges","tag-uh-manoa","tag-undergraduate","tag-windward-community-college","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/windward-earth-sci-scott-p-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221817","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=221817"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221836,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221817\/revisions\/221836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}