Rhoebbie Palero, 15, who was walking with Marie that day, said nothing "because I thought it was her business."

The two girls, however, have a different attitude about littering since working on a group project titled "Operation Waipahu."

As part of the project, 66 Waipahu sophomores identified and photographed community problems such as illegal dump sites, surveyed 2,000 people for their opinions, and prepared a PowerPoint presentation that they delivered to the school on Thursday.

"Trash adds up," Marie said of one thing she learned from the project. "I want people to recognize that we are a good community but we all need to do things to make our community better."

Margaret Siligo, 15, has lived her whole life in Waipahu and believes the community should no longer tolerate illegal dumping.

"You see piles and piles of rubbish on Aniani (Place) and kids are playing on it," Margaret said. "It's dangerous. If you think about it, it affects everybody and people shouldn't be afraid to complain. Instead of dumping, people should just call the city to pick up (bulky items).

"This was a good project because I found how people who live in Kunia and other places felt about Waipahu."

Graffiti is another problem, Rhoebbie Palero said, adding that although her group is planning a paint-out in May, it's really not a solution.

"The ones doing it think tagging is cool, but it's not," Rhoebbie said. "It looks ugly. The taggers are the problem and they should make them do the paint over."

The experiences gained from a project such as "Operation Waipahu" would be difficult for students were it not for the "smaller learning community" strategy being implemented gradually at Waipahu and nine other high schools statewide.

The strategy helps ninth- and 10th-grade students make the transition to large public schools by keeping them together in small groups taught by a core group of teachers. It also provides students with the opportunity to see how their different course subjects relate to one another through cross-curriculum assignments such as the "Operation Waipahu" project.

The project was planned by social-studies teacher Kai Bouchard, chemistry teacher Jim Dyke, math teacher Amelia Taan and English teacher Kristi Hammond.

The goal was for students to earn class points for different project categories: community surveys (social studies), collecting and testing water samples (chemistry), data collection and analysis (math), and sending out invitations to politicians and the PowerPoint presentation (English).

"The biggest thing they got out of it was pride in their community," Hammond said. "After they did the project, I think many of the students found many advantages about Waipahu. Their enthusiasm and community-mindedness exceeded expectations but as an English teacher, I think we still need to improve a little (in that area)."

At Waipahu, which began implementing the "smaller learning community" concept during the 2003-04 school year, the small class groups are called "houses." There were only two houses, both for freshmen, the first year.

For the current school year, there are four freshman and four sophomore houses, and the number will increase to seven freshman and five sophomore houses in 2005-06, with "wall-to-wall" houses — meaning it will include all freshmen and sophomores — planned for 2006-07.

The "smaller learning community" strategy is working at Waipahu, said Cesceli Nakamura, who coordinates the school's SLC program with Stephen Nakano and Gail Izumigawa.

"Students in house courses are grading higher and attendance is also higher," said Nakamura, who noted that students are randomly selected for assignment to houses, which account for 50 percent of the freshman class and slightly less than half of the school's sophomores.

The Hawai'i SLC Consortium is using a $3 million federal grant to implement the strategy at Waipahu, Campbell, Wai'anae, Roosevelt, Kaimuki, Kalani, Kaua'i, Lahainaluna, Waiakea and Maui high schools. The consortium has applied for planning grants to implement the strategy at Kahuku, Kalaheo and King Kekaulike high schools in 2005-06.