In Gavin Miculka’s view, history is best learned via the senses — sight, sound, touch, smell and taste — rather than just words and pictures in a book.

“Regardless of age, people seem to absorb and retain information better through personal experiences,” said Miculka, museum farm manager at the Kona Historical Society’s 5.5-acre Kona Coffee Living History Farm. “I think their time with us is more interesting and enriching when they can say, ‘I did this’ instead of ‘I read this.’”

On the restored early- 1900s homestead are a farmhouse and coffee-processing mill that are on the State and National Registers of Historic Places.

Miculka is the driving force behind the society’s Hands on History program. Launched in March, it offers activities that were part of daily life for pioneers of Kona’s world-famous coffee industry a century ago.

Before earning his master’s degree in applied anthropology from the University of Maryland in 2014, Miculka worked as a guide at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia. He was inspired by a program there, Historic Trades Workshops, which enables guests to learn 19th-century trades such as blacksmithing, tinsmithing and the making of bread, cheese and butter.

On Hawaii island, Puu- honua o Honaunau National Historical Park’s Cultural Festival in June — where lei, nose flutes, hula gourds and other make-and-take Hawaiian arts and crafts are popular diversions — also made a great impact.

His “aha moment” for Hands on History came in spring 2015, when Miki Izu, a 92-year-old retired Kona coffee farmer, began doing special demonstrations for visiting groups.

“Miki showed them how he and his family used to roast coffee in a cast-iron pan over an open flame,” Miculka said. “He helped establish the Kona Coffee Living History Farm in 1999 and has been volunteering here ever since. As such, he interacts regularly with visitors, but I was particularly impressed by the ‘talk story’ style of his coffee-roasting presentations.”

Miculka started thinking about how Izu’s presentation could be taken to the next level: In addition to showing how coffee is pan-roasted, he could teach people how to do it and then let them try it. Other hands-on activities that would work well in the authentic setting of a century-old coffee farm came to mind.

Thus, Hands on History was born. It features seven activities on a rotating, twice-weekly schedule that are not part of the farm’s regular programming: calligraphy, pickling, gardening, medicinal plants, coffee roasting, tofu making and lau hala weaving.

According to Miculka, visitors have embraced the emphasis on active learning. For example, during Backyard Groceries: Sustainability in the Kitchen Garden, they roll up their pants and shirtsleeves to harvest beets and plant carrots and daikon.

They also learn about sustainable growing techniques and receive dried seeds in season (currently, tomato, soybeans and kabocha) to either start or augment their garden at home.

Activities are led by farm staff and volunteers, many of whom are lifetime or longtime Kona residents who welcome a forum to share fond memories of childhood, perpetuate local traditions and help visitors delve deeper into Kona’s enthralling past.

“Initially, many visitors think they’re just doing something fun, but by the time they’ve finished, they’ve likely enjoyed a stimulating conversation about family, immigration, sustainability, ingenuity, hard work and cultural preservation and adaptation,” Miculka said. “Those are universal themes, and they often realize that our farm’s story is similar to the stories of their ancestors. Everything we do is based on ‘living history’ — reviving a century-old Kona coffee farm and making relevant connections to life today.”

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Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.