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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, June 10, 2002

Kapolei High students put problem-solving skills to the test

By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer

The struggle was evident across the classroom. Bloody footprints trailed out the doorway, wine glasses lay tipped over on the white linen-covered dinner table and a tube of lipstick rolled on the floor, discarded in haste. There was the ripped-up note, the dropped walking cane and the half-eaten Twix bar left behind.

Erin Crisano, 14, peers through a magnifying glass during a Kapolei High School project in which students must use lessons learned from various classes, including science and social studies, to solve a "murder" mystery.

Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

And then there was the issue of the missing body.

When teachers started "murdering" each other over alleged extramarital affairs, things got interesting at Kapolei High School.

"People thought we had gone crazy," science teacher Trisha Nepomuceno said. "Kids were tearing the campus apart to find the murder weapon."

To solve the fictional crime, 118 science and social studies students were on the case, dusting for fingerprints, questioning suspects and immersing themselves in forensic science.

By the time the case went to trial, everyone was so excited that at one point when a witness was clearly fibbing on the stand, the prosecuting attorney jumped up and, lacking a proper legal reprimand for the situation, screamed, "I object! Liar, liar pants on fire!"

This, teachers and students say, is what happens when teens get passionate about learning.

It's also an example of project-based learning, with students working together across academic disciplines to solve problems.

Educators hope to take Kapolei's project-based learning model statewide at a June 17-18 conference on high school reform.

They'll work with teams of administrators from 43 public high schools across the state on how to change the learning environment on their campuses.

"It's very different, and it's a much harder way to teach. These wonderful things have been happening in pockets," said Katherine Kawaguchi, assistant superintendent for the office of curriculum and student support at the state Department of Education. "The question and challenge becomes, is it OK for these things to only happen in pockets?"

The reform ideas come from an influential 1996 report from the Commission on the Restructuring of the American High School called "Breaking Ranks: Changing an American Institution." Included are 80 recommendations that form a blueprint for high-school reform in the 21st century, gathered from the experience, ideas and insights of teachers, principals and students.

Among the "Breaking Ranks" recommendations: teaching beyond the traditional lecture format, teaching across disciplines and breaking large schools into smaller communities.

From the start, Kapolei High School, the state's newest public high school, was intended to be the first "21st century" school in the state, said Kawaguchi, who worked with architects on the design of the school and helped develop the curriculum.

Students have block schedules to allow them extra time in a subject when needed, teachers are expected to work together on developing learning projects and each grade at the school has its own building to break the school into what administrators hope have become smaller "family groups." There are large rooms across campus that can accommodate several classes of students at a time for large projects and presentations.

While some smaller charter schools have embraced project-based learning and many regular public schools use projects in different ways, Kapolei is the first large public high school in the state to use the teaching method in such an all-encompassing way, education officials say. All of the core academic subjects at Kapolei use this problem-solving method of learning; in a couple of years, all of the electives will, too.

"We've developed a new vision of a Hawai'i public school graduate," Kawaguchi said. "We need to implement across the board the 'Breaking Ranks' principles. How do you personalize the instruction? How do you create smaller learning communities?"

At Kapolei High, the 12-week murder mystery project called Who Dunnit was created late one night at home on a computer by Nepomuceno. She worked with social studies teacher Deborah Knight on the project.

As in the board game Clue, students didn't know who was killed or why. But they had a roomful of evidence, the tape outline of a dead body on the floor and a list of suspects.

As part of their social studies class, they learned about the legal system, sought warrants and interviewed teachers on their witness list. Later, they would take the case to trial.

For science, they analyzed the bite marks on the Twix bar, then took bite samples from all of the suspects. Students dusted the room for fingerprints and measured the bloody — well, ketchupy — footprints to determine the murderer's approximate height. They analyzed ink on the torn note, then ran tests on the pens of all the suspects to see whose ink matched.

Soon, all signs pointed to special-education teacher Haunani Aken.

But why?

"The motive was the hardest part," said Jessica Benzon, 14. "It looked like an affair."

Students initially thought that Aken had killed teacher Cynthia Chun because she thought Chun was having an affair with her husband.

All but one of the 28 teams correctly figured out that Chun and Mr. Aken had actually been planning a surprise birthday party for Ms. Aken. Ms. Aken mistakenly thought she had stumbled across an affair, became enraged and stabbed her co-worker. The team that got a search warrant and found the murder weapon got bonus points. The knife was taped underneath a bookcase in Aken's classroom.

"Our whole goal at the beginning of the year was to make these kids good problem solvers," Nepomuceno said. "They exceeded our wildest explanations."

Many of the ninth-graders turned in 20- to 30-page papers at the end of the project. The teams even had to re-enact the crime, prompting a round of video awards for things such as Best Scream and Most Prolonged Death Scene. At trial, students played the parts of expert witnesses, character witnesses, the judge, the jury and the press corps.

Ronald Viernes, 15, played the part of Dr. Stnirpregnif, which is fingerprints spelled backward. He was the expert who matched the fingerprints on the knife to Aken.

"You don't realize that you're learning, but you are," Viernes said. "It was much better than doing paperwork."

Erin Crisano, 14, was grilled on the stand as a psychologist arguing that Aken was temporarily insane when she committed the murder.

Crisano said she learned more about forensic science and psychology than she ever thought she would.

"We had to sketch out the crime scene," she said. "We couldn't touch anything in the room and had to take all kinds of measurements."

Kapolei High Principal Alvin Nagasako said he was lucky to be able to open the new high school two years ago and recruit teachers who were enthusiastic about the idea of project-based learning.

"It's a change in paradigm. The criticism of American education is that the learning has too much breath and not enough depth," Nagasako said. "That's what this is about. We go so in depth with our concepts."

He recently gave education officials from Canada and Seattle a tour of his campus. "What they're seeing is that it's hard work," Nagasako said. "You've got to put on a show every day." Time for teacher preparation and professional development becomes even more important in a project-based school, he said.

Progressive schools across the country have gone to project-based learning, Nagasako said. "I don't want to make it sound like we're a leader. Other schools across the country are doing that, but I don't know if other schools are trying to do it as wholesale as we are."

At Kapolei, the Who Dunnit project has prompted a new interest in careers in law and forensic science — and also promoted viewership of the television show "CSI."

"Everyone is interested in this stuff now," Benzon said.

"Yea," Crisano said. "Anything with murder."

As for Aken, she said she has no hard feelings about being branded as a murderer for the better part of the semester.

And, despite their bloody semester, she and Chun remain friends.

Reach Jennifer Hiller at jhiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.