Hawai‘i Nature Center is offering a day program for students age 6-11 as a supplement to school science programs.

During normal times, schools regularly have field trips to the Makiki Valley facility, but COVID-19 is expected to curtail those activities, said executive director Todd Cullison. Instead, the center, which successfully ran COVID-free weeklong camps all summer, is offering its Outdoor EDventure Days program, a schedule of all-day, twice-weekly sessions that will address topics like climate change, the ahupuaa ecosystem, native species and cycles of nature. The curriculum will jibe with the school programming.

“It will be an all-day, 100% outdoor program that will incorporate many of the topics we cover during the summer, but it will incorporate more of the state’s Next Generation Science standards,” Cullison said. “This program will still be fun and exciting and kids will be outside, but we will include more science themes. … So if we’re talking about ahupuaa or watersheds, we’re going to bring in those lessons that are state Department of Education-approved.”

There will be no homework, but there will be “intellectual stimuli” like keeping a journal, Cullison said.

The sessions begin Aug. 24. Up to 30 students a day can participate, divided into groups of 10. Sign up for sessions on either Mondays and Wednesdays or Tuesdays and Thursdays. Sessions run from 8 a.m.-3 p.m., through September. Cost is $140 (members) or $170 (nonmembers) on Oahu. Discounts are available for students who attend Title I schools. Visit HawaiiNatureCenter.org to enroll.

Hawai‘i Nature Center will also run the program at its Maui facility in the Iao Valley. Cost is $110 for members or $140 for nonmembers, and students sign up for either Monday/Tuesday or Thursday/Friday sessions.

Students can sign up for as many sessions as they want, and a wait list will be held.