Haleakala silversword planting gave Maui elementary students a chance to care for a rare plant in the place it calls home. Mahalo to the Makawao School and Haiku School students who helped Haleakalā National Park plant keiki silverswords near the summit.
We first shared this school service trip in December 2019. The photos and account below recall that visit; they aren’t an announcement for an upcoming planting event.
Haiku and Makawao Students Give Back
Haleakala EcoTours took several classes to Haleakalā National Park: Haiku School fourth- and fifth-graders and Makawao School fourth-graders. What a great experience we were happy to have been part of.
The students learned how plants made their way to Hawaiʻi long ago. They also learned how those plants adapted to a new environment and became endemic species, found nowhere else in the world.
The visit connected that lesson to the Hawaiian value of kuleana. Each student had a responsibility to help protect these rare plants and the place where they grow.
Students during the school trip shared in our December 2019 story. Original MauiGoodness.com credit retained.
Learning About Haleakala Silversword Planting
The National Park Service propagates rare native plants in a protected nursery. For this visit, students helped plant some of those “baby” silverswords, or ʻāhinahina, in the summit region.
Original planting and silversword collage from our 2019 story. MauiGoodness.com credit retained.
Park rangers and staff met the children at the summit. They shared information about silverswords, invasive species and the work needed to protect the park’s native plants.
Staff then took the students into a supervised restoration area beyond regular visitor access. This gave the young plants room to grow away from trampling. The children split into small groups, and staff marked the surrounding area to limit disturbance.
A ranger showed them the planting process: prepare a hole, place the young plant, replace the soil and water it. This was park-directed restoration work, not an invitation for visitors to plant or collect silverswords on their own.
The school community and ʻāhinahina in a collage from our 2019 story. Original MauiGoodness.com credit retained.
Why These Young Plants Matter
The Haleakalā silversword is federally listed as threatened. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service species page identifies this Maui plant as Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. macrocephalum.
Haleakala silversword planting is one part of a much broader effort to care for native plants. The park’s native-plant conservation information describes nursery propagation, outplanting and other restoration work.
Regular visitors can help by staying on established trails and giving living silverswords space. The park’s Summit District plant guide explains that fragile roots extend around the plant’s base.
Original ʻāhinahina and school-visit collage from our 2019 story. MauiGoodness.com credit retained.
Mahalo to the School Community
The children were excited to learn about silverswords and help plant them. Big thanks to the fourth- and fifth-grade students, teachers and parents from Haiku and Makawao who gave their time to this effort.
We loved seeing a classroom lesson become hands-on care for ʻāhinahina atop Haleakalā. Mahalo for your kōkua!
We’re a small group of full-time Maui residents that LOVE exploring and writing about what we think is the best place on Earth: The Island of Maui, Hawaii! Expect many more articles, reviews, photos and videos of Maui and all of the Hawaiian Islands. ALOHA!
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