The next day was dedicated to the Hawai’i Environmental Education Alliance conference that I was attending.  There were some very interesting talks, to get a little insight without me going into too much detail, you can look at the day’s schedule. Peep the last presentation in the Ohia room..ME 🙂

 

My presentation focused on the algae lab that we do with students on Coconut Island and I spoke about the importance of learning about the ecosystem in which you live in.  Especially here in Hawaii these students have such a unique location to learn and be involved with, they are so lucky! The presentation went well and overall the day was tiring but super fun.  I ended the day with a little hike around the crater with some other Kupu interns that were at the conference with work.

The next day I woke up early and drove the remainder of Volcanoes National Park.  I went to the Thurston Lava Tube and several crater lookouts, it was gorgeous!

At around 9:00 AM I met with my Kupu friend, Cheyenne, who invited me to do the lava hike with her and her brother.  I had been wanting to do this and didn’t want to do it alone so I gladly joined her.  We drove down to Pahoa where we visited the farm where her brother works at, it was amazing!  It was eye-opening to see these people living off the land and off the grid on a rural farm, and everyone was very nice and happy to be there

The hike to the lava is pretty far, has no shade, but the payoff makes it so worth it.  Here are the photos from the day, pretty epic getting to watch lava flow into the ocean and legitimately watch earth being formed! How cool!

The rest of the day was spent driving from this hike back to my car in Volcano National Park , and then all the way back to Kona.  It was a long, tiring day, but again it was totally worth it.