The Success Factory launched the 5th annual NexTech Hawai’i FishTank Sustainability Design Challenge on January 11, 2025. This year’s challenge is limited to Hawaii Island youth grades 5-8.

In this fun and inspiring learning experience, 49 students have begun to tackle tough, complex problems related to building a more Food-Secure future for Hawaii This cohort of students (the largest so far) accepted this year's challenge, with 16 teams from 13 Hawai’i Island schools competing for $6,600 scholarship awards and cash prizes. Boys and girls equally represent this year’s cohort.

Each competing team has chosen an imaginative name and a designated Team Coordinator—a parent, relative, teacher, coach, or any other adult advisor committed to mentoring the students throughout the challenge. Each team will receive a $250 mini-grant for expenses to support the development of their solution, such as the purchase of supplies and raw materials. In addition, the students are provided with an online Engineering Notebook to track their ideas and collaborate on work and progress reports.

Mahalo to the schools represented this year: E.B, De Silva Elementary, Hawai’i Academy of Arts & Science, Ka Ana La’ahana PCS, Ke Kula O Nawahiokalani’opu’u PCS, Kealakehe Intermediate, Laupahoehoe PCS, Myron B. Thompson PCS, St. Joseph School, Volcano School of Arts & Sciences, Waiakea Intermediate, Waiakeawaena Elementary. We also have several homeschoolers (mahalo to our Homeschool educators).

Solving one problem at a time.

Each FishTank team aims to develop an innovative solution to one of the myriad issues surrounding Food Security.

The challenges of local Food Security are as daunting as they are many. The islands of Hawai’i are home to one of the world's most geographically isolated and food-import-dependent populations. By some estimates, Hawai’i imports between 85 and 90 percent of its food, and at any given time, the people of Hawai’i have only a five—to—seven—day supply of food. In addition, Hawai’i is highly vulnerable to natural and man-made disasters and to outside interruptions to its food supply. With so much of the state’s food production dependent on mainland and international suppliers, large swaths of unused agricultural lands become susceptible to harmful grasses and invasive species.

Hawai’i farmers have long faced several problems:

• Land access. Arable land is hard to find, and much of the fallow land from bygone plantations lacks adequate infrastructure for food farming.

• Unhealthy soil. Centuries of large-scale, industrially farmed plantations have contaminated or reduced vital plant nutrients in the soil.

• Water supply. Water is scarce on Hawai’i Island. Irrigation is needed to farm in the hot and dry parts of the Big Island.

• Climate change. Hawai’i has experienced historic droughts, and climatologists predict the islands will get hotter and drier.

• Labor shortage. It’s difficult to find farm workers, and even more difficult to attract young people to the industry.

• Pests. A year-round growing season is ideal for insects and invasive species, which can reduce crop yield or destroy crops.

• Rising costs. Small farms struggle to make ends meet due to the high land, water, labor, and energy costs. Farmers in Hawai’i have some of the lowest profit margins in the country.

We must take a multifaceted integrated approach to these problems to increase local food production and strengthen the food system island-wide.

Exploring problems and solutions.

In a virtual Information Workshop that launched the competition on January 11, students were provided with information, ideas, and inspiration on how to meet the challenge of Food Security. Pi'ialoha Carlson of the SDG Youth Council shared her journey and experience serving on the council. Sydnie Melemai talked about her personal growth and interest in growing food in her school garden to meet Federal Standards for use in school meals. The workshop also explored Hawai’i’s Aloha + Challenge and its goal to double local food production and increase consumption of locally sourced food in the islands.

Students learned about the Hawai’i 2050 Sustainability Plan. They were provided access to local agriculture and food production data and an outline of several current efforts to reconnect people to the land and connect them with helpful resources. These efforts include:

• Providing farmland to support local agriculture, as well as support farmers, ranch operators, and food production workers.

• Increasing food processing capability with greater accessibility to commercial kitchens, local food processing plants, and agricultural-related facilities.

• Improving and streamlining distribution channels for farmers and producers of locally grown food for chefs, restaurants, and grocers.

• Lowering costs and prices of locally grown meat and produce.

• Reducing food waste.

Students were given exclusive online access to a “Fish Food” resources site to explore further:

• The Hawai’i Island Food Basket’s plan to build a Food System Innovation Campus, and other community-led initiatives to support local agricultural production, food processing, distribution, and consumption.

• The Hawai’i Food System Summit’s top policy issues for 2024 and priorities:

  • Expanding the islands’ farm-to-school programs.

  • Supporting indigenous and traditional knowledge for cultivating culturally significant crops such as kalo and ‘ulu.

  • Improving both the resiliency and disaster preparedness of Hawai’i’s food system.

Students are learning how agricultural diversification, agroforestry, aquaculture, backyard gardens, and returning to traditional Hawaiian agriculture and food production methods can help increase Hawaii’s soil fertility and food security and promote sustainable, community-based solutions.

Students are encouraged to think beyond our ʻāina and consider how their ideas on sustainable food production, science, and technical innovation can positively impact our Island Earth.

Competition milestones and the 7-step Engineering Design Process.

Students participating in the FishTank Sustainability Design Challenge are given tools and instructional materials for this hands-on STEM learning experience, including teamwork, design and engineering, leadership, and entrepreneurial skills development exercises.

Throughout the 12-week program, students will meet several milestones in two virtual workshops and final preparation of proposals and presentation materials.

It started with getting ready for the Launch Day Workshop. Before Launch Day, students received a Welcome Package with their Engineering Notebook, worksheet, toolkit, and an outline of the 7-step FishTank Engineering Design Process. The Fish Food resource site provides a variety of learning materials and documentation, recordings of the Information Workshop, an outline of steps, schedules and deliverables in the EDP, details on Problem Categories, Skills Workshops and Live Classroom Q&A, Technical Training, Leadership Styles and Presentation Skills programs, and much more.

The Engineering Design Process (EDP)

The EDP provides a pathway and guide with examples, templates, video tutorials, tools, and forms. Here are the seven steps:

1. Understand the Issues. Review the challenges around Food Security in Hawai’i and research materials on the Fish Food site to identify a specific problem the team wants to focus on.

2. Define the Problem Statement. Once a specific issue is defined, each team can connect with local Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). The SMEs are volunteers that could include educators, business and community leaders, Hawaiian cultural practitioners, and other advisors.

3. Brainstorm Solutions. Students must think like engineers and collaborate with the team coordinator and SMEs to devise possible solutions and develop their ideas.

4. Design & Model. This milestone step in the process requires each team to develop their solution, craft a vision of how it works, what it may look like, and how it will function to solve their chosen problem. 

5. Test & Evaluate. Like in the real world, students may find that the EDP is often a non-linear, iterative process.

6. Modify & Improve. Teams may revisit brainstorming to reconsider, make changes or adjustments, or fine-tune their solution.

7. Present the solution. Communicating new ideas is fundamental for successful innovations. FishTank students must also think like entrepreneurs by creating a compelling, cost-effective proposal (in the style of the Shark Tank TV show) for the competition judges.