Project Niu is a K-12 science curriculum that provides students and teachers with hands-on, project-based experiences with the technologies used in remotely monitoring the ocean. Through deploying and tracking a high tech "message in a bottle" as it drifts out to sea, students develop an understanding of mankind's impact on the watershed while forming personal connections to the environment. The Project Niu team includes engineers and scientists at Archinoetics, LLC and is sponsored by NOAA's B-WET Hawaii Program.

Niu means "coconut" in Hawaiian
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Make Science Fun!

This standards-based project is perfect for K-12 science classes and centers on the "Niu" device, which is a small, relatively inexpensive ocean drifter device designed specifically for educational use. Students deploy the Niu from a coastal location and track it online throughout the school year as it travels around the ocean. They apply the scientific method in researching and forming a hypothesis about where the Niu will travel based on ocean currents, weather patterns, tides, etc. To date, Project Niu has already been implemented successfully in one sixth grade class and has just expanded this school year to five classes in sixth grade and high school.

Environmental Stewardship

Project Niu teaches students (and the community at-large) about the direct impact that each person can have on the oceans and the environment, particularly the effects of their actions both locally and globally. Beyond the education that students receive in class, they learn how to become responsible stewards of the environment throughout their lives. Student participate in "Outdoor Experiences" to beach parks and key watershed sites and are active contributors on this website.

Marine Debris

As a drifter in the ocean, the Niu follows a path similar to floating marine debris, giving students a personal understanding of the widespread damage that can be caused by careless or irresponsible actions. The critical link between the science curricula and environmental stewardship is illustrated to students with photos (right, courtesy of NOAA) of trash-laden remote beaches in Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument (also known as the Northwest Hawaiian Islands). Students are challenged to determine how a remote, uninhabited island in a legally protected region of the ocean could be littered with garbage. They learn about the infamous "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" (a Texas-sized gyre in the northern Pacific Ocean littered with countless tons of floating plastic debris), how it is formed, and the impact that debris has on marine ecosystems.