Thirty students in The Design School at Arizona State University traveled to Hawaii this semester as part of a unique studio course to create new ways of saving the islands' dying coral.
Climate change and sea level rise spurred by global warming threaten the islands from mountain to sea, with the potential for destructive floods and erosion caused by stronger, less predictable storms sending contaminants, soil and debris downhill to a vulnerable ocean.
For centuries, Native Hawaiians managed their lands in a balanced and holistic way, viewing the ecology of the entire watershed from the forested uplands to the agricultural land and the fisheries as one place.