Youngsters learn by doing.
The Boys and Girls Club of Hawaii Windward Clubhouse came up with an innovative way for them to learn about conservation.
The folks at Sunetric came up with a clever idea to get the young people thinking about conservation. They sponsored a poetry/rap/skit contest at the Boys and Girls club on the windward side.
"And what they were learning, they could take outside of that day and help share the message with others. So I thought if we could come up with a creative for them to learn it and communicate it that it would be beneficial," said Laura Poirier of Sunetric.
The director of the Boys and Girls Club Windward clubhouse thought it was a great plan.
"The funnest thing for me was to see all the kids engaged - boys, girls, elementary school kids, middle school kids - to see them actively taking part," said Maureen Purington of the Boys and Girls Club.
The Boys and Girls club is an 11 hour a day program that provides activities AND education.
"One of our core program areas at the Boys and Girls clubs is education, so this was an educational program and it was also core development which is another part of our core program areas," Purington says.
The young people only had 15 minutes to put together their poem, rap or skit. The winners each took home an Ipod shuffle. But both Maureen and Laura agreed, it was a worthwhile exercise.
"They were great. They were great. So we'd love to take this to other schools and expand and education is really important for us and we feel lucky to be able to help educate Hawaii's youth about renewable energy," Poirier says.
