Adventure is out there!

Photo by Lawrence Tabudlo

Exploring New Horizons is a fitting theme for the ninth annual Onizuka Day of Exploration.

Hosted by Scouting America, Aloha Council, the annual STEM event offers opportunities to learn about a variety of careers, attend workshops on Native Hawaiian culture and the sciences and participate in more than 100 interactive activities. Attendees may visit booths led by Scouts and community organizations alike. All activities take place 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on April 5 at University of Hawaiʻi–West Oʻahu.

Onizuka Day is led by Alim Shabazz, co-chair for Onizuka Day; Blake Parsons, CEO and Scout ºexecutive for Scouting America, Aloha Council; and Maenette Benham, chancellor for UH–West Oʻahu.

Staging the event on campus also holds a deeper cultural significance as a gathering place, according to Benham. Located in ʻEwa, one of Oʻahu’s largest moku (district), UH–West Oʻahu is also nestled within the islandʻs largest ahupuaʻa, Honouliuli, which covers a larger agricultural area where many workers have crossed paths.

“(It) is very significant as a place where many people travel through,” says Benham, who describes the area as a transit point. “I think it’s quite appropriate to have folks come out to the West side, especially to Honouliuli … The place itself, the ʻāina itself, calls to people to come and visit and gather, travelers from all different places.”

Previously known as Makahiki, Onizuka Day continues to be the longest-running Scout-led event in the U.S. It’s named after Hawaiʻi-born astronaut Ellison Onizuka, who was among those aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger that tragically exploded in 1986.

Maintaining the importance behind the name, the event’s leadership refocuses on the astronaut’s legacy of looking to the future and introducing opportunities to the next generation.

It begins with Shabazz — a visionary who oversees the overall concept of Onizuka Day.

“When we first met with UH–West Oʻahu, we painted the vision that if you are talking to children when they’re seniors, you might have lost the opportunity to introduce them to higher education or UH–West Oʻahu, but by having it at the campus and exposing them year over year over year, it demystifies college for a lot of people,” the event co-chair explains.

His own son is proof of the positive impacts of Onizuka Day.

Alim Jr., an Eagle Scout just like his father, will soon attend UH–West Oʻahu to major in graphic design and game design.

“He said it was because of the several years that he’s been exposed to UH–West Oʻahu over the course of both the Onizuka Day and other programs he’s attended, and getting a chance to really understand their graphic design and their game design programs not just from a brochure or a campus visit … but thoroughly over the course of years,” Shabazz says.

Even if his son chose a different path from college, Shabazz believes Alim Jr. has had enough exposure to higher education to make an informed decision.

While Onizuka Day highlights many topics in STEM, Shabazz puts an emphasis on artificial intelligence.

“I tell (my sons), ‘You’re not going to lose your job to AI. You’re going to lose your job to someone who knows how to use the technology,’” he says. 

Planning Onizuka Day takes a core team of 10 unpaid volunteers, including Shabazz.

While he is already busy with his own fitness business serving adaptive veterans, Shabazz has been an Onizuka Day volunteer since 2020.

What makes it all worth it is hearing attendees say that the event inspired them.

“Onizuka Day to me is a purposeful event,” Shabazz says. “I feel like we’re actually doing something, we’re not just working to get money … but it’s also: Are we actually serving the greater good, serving our community (and) helping? That, to me, at this phase of my life, is very important.

“Right now, it’s the biggest (STEM event) in Hawaiʻi, but — with the cooperation of UH–West Oʻahu and the capacity that we have there — we can really turn this into the premier STEM event in the United States,” he adds.

Onizuka Day is a great place to introduce keiki to science and math, especially through a cultural lens, says Benham.

Workshops incorporate Hawaiian cultural practices, knowledge and stories to elevate indigenous science. Topics include the science of sustainable agriculture, caring for and growing canoe plants, even health and wellness through hoʻoponopono — an overview on conflict-resolution, health and well-being.

Attendees can even learn the stories of hā akua (deities and gods) and the travels of the goddess Hiʻiaka. 

“What we want folks to know is that the kānaka knew science. They had their science, their indigenous scientific knowledge,” Benham says.

“It’s not the kind of math that you might have learned in elementary school. It’s really engaging (in) mathematical processes,” she says. “Introducing folks to do calculus by being a navigator on the Hōkūleʻa? We have that opportunity. And, I really want to highlight the ways in which our faculty and our educational partners are integrating cultural knowledge, art, music with the STEM disciplinary and making it more fun and accessible.”

Before she became chancellor in 2017, Benham was a kindergarten teacher.

She describes the most rewarding part of Onizuka Day for her, saying, “I will always be a kindergarten teacher because I just love it when you watch the kids and when the light bulbs go off and when they’re running around very excited because they want to go see the Black Hawk helicopter … I know it sounds sort of corny, but I guess the best part of it is just really watching everybody having fun and learning and being engaged.”

Benham was happy to host Onizuka Day because of her own connection to Scouting. Her father was a Scout leader and was awarded Silver Beaver, a distinguished award in the Scouting world.

Due to her father being in Scouting, she went to Makahiki often and both of her brothers are Eagle Scouts.

She emphasizes that Onizuka Day is open to everyone and to all ages — not just Scouts.

Next year, Benham hopes to open up more opportunities at UH–West Oʻahu’s new creative media facility for attendees interested in the fields of film production, post-production, immersive technology and AI.

“We want to continue to do it, because it’s not only a great thing for our community in the state of Hawaiʻi, but it’s also a great opportunity for us to really show people what we do at West Oʻahu,” Benham says.

Parsons has been involved with Scouting for pretty much his whole life — starting at 6 years old.

“Scouts meant more to me and helped me develop and help me become a leader than anything else in my life,” says Parsons who has led Scouting America, Aloha Council since 2023.

Prior to becoming CEO, he ran a construction trade association where he applied project management skills he learned from Scouting.

While in construction, a question arose of how to create more leaders.

“Does that come from just more money, or does that come from something deep inside them about just a leadership role?” he reflects. “I thought Scouting is a solution to that from a very early age of developing that next generation of leaders and really setting people off to be good citizens, good team members, good leaders.”

Parsons recognizes the long-term positive impacts of Scouting on an individual.

“There’s so many stories about, ‘Well, I joined this Scout troop and that really saved me,’ or ‘that really set me off in the right direction,’ or ‘that gave me an opportunity to learn,’” he explains. “From advancing in rank to completing a merit badge, to staying on track to doing your Eagle Scout service project — it’s all about managing time, managing resources, managing projects. And Scouts really does that well.”

This year’s event also highlights skills associated with Scouting like rope and knot tying, relays, essential survival skills and first aid.

He says the most rewarding aspect of Onizuka Day is seeing all the kids participating in the program.

“You see that spark of excitement, but also just a spark of accomplishment,” he says. “That’s the most exciting thing to be a part of. An exciting thing to witness is just the growth of youth and how this event facilitates that.”

In connection with the theme of Exploring New Horizons, Parsons feels like there are such a variety of experiences to explore in Scouting.

“The key to Scouting is that you can kind of create your own village here. You can create your own destiny,” he says. “If you want to be heavily involved in a sports track, or you want to be heavily involved in a science track, or whatever that interest is that speaks you … it’s just pretty diverse that those horizons are available.

“And I think being part of Scouting allows you to get a little bit of everything.”