0289 - Climate-Smart Agriculture in Hawaii - Foundations in Soil Health
Course Description
This course will give students a foundation in soil health, Hawaiʻiʻs agricultural history including present agricultural landscapes, federal funding agencies and policies, conservation practice standards, and field skills related to soil health and soil carbon in agricultural settings.
This course will give students the skills to apply a multidisciplinary and soil health based lens of analysis to the technical, social, and logistical systems that must be analyzed and navigated when implementing climate-smart agriculture in Hawaiʻi. Students will gain an understanding of the historical context of agriculture in Hawai'i, from geology to contemporary times and the challenges and opportunities that colonialism, resource pressure, and development present. Students will orient to the US federal agricultural funding programs and policy with express focus on alignment and barriers for Pacific Island Area producers and practitioners. On the ground students will gain experience with the scientific underpinning of climate-smart Conservation Practice Standards and their implementation in Hawai'i. Through the climate-smart lens students will also analyze soil health practices and rural communities land stewardship as foundational to creating a robust local food production.
Students will complete reading, discussion, reflection, research, reporting, and small group work.
August 26 to Dec 16, 2025 online sync. Plus online async tbd.
Tuesdays, 9:00am to 10:15am
Online format - Google Classroom will be used
Online async TBD
Instructor: Linden M. Schneider
Linden Schneider is a Junior Researcher in the Natural Resources and Environmental Management Department at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, where she teaches and serves as the research and training coordinator of the Hawai'i Climate-Smart Partnership climatesmarthawaii.org. She has over 15 years working in academic, private, and nonprofit settings to facilitate collaboration with diverse parties around strategic systems change to increase equitable access to resources and redefine systems and process to meet the agricultural producers needs to ensure greater food security at local and regional scales. She received her MS from the University of California Berkeley in Biogeochemistry and her BA in Botany with a Minor in Chemistry from Sonoma State University. Most recently before joining UH Manoa she served as the Assistant Director of the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station.
Please email lindensc@hawaii.edu for more information.