
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,