>> Everywhere you turn, people try to tell you who to be and what to do.

But what about deciding for yourself?

Roadtrip Nation is a movement that empowers people to define their own roads in life.

This year, we brought together three students from the State of Hawaii.

Together, they explored the Hawaiian Islands, interviewing inspiring individuals from all walks of life.

They hit the road in search of wisdom and guidance to find out what it actually takes to create a life around doing what you love.

This is what they found.

Roadtrip Nation presents, Setting Course.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> We are currently on Island of Hawaii.

[MUSIC] >> We woke up early to make it to the morning traffic and get to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park [MUSIC] We got to meet Kevan Kamibayashi and, Mr. Jim Kauahikaua.

>> It's great to interview them up top in the observatory lookout, to see the volcano right behind us and the lava splashing up.

>> Which is really, really special because not a lot of people can go up there, especially conduct an interview.

I was in awe the whole time, which is, I guess, a good thing that we weren't facing the volcano [LAUGH] cuz I was just kind of zoned out.

[MUSIC] >> Well, our main mission here is to monitor the activity of Hawaiian volcanoes and then to assess their threat.

But to do that, you have to understand a lot about how volcanoes work, which starts with basic geology.

And you look at a landscape like this, how did that form?

So I worked on a geothermal project, mostly on this island in Maui, and that's ultimately what lead to my big geophysicist working on Hawaiian volcanoes.

>> I'm the Chief Field Engineer here at the volcano observatory.

We have about 240 remote sites on just Hawaii Island.

90% of our network, you can only get to by helicopter.

I jokingly often tell people that our technician crew, we're really the most important people at the observatory [LAUGH].

>> [LAUGH] >> Because if there was no instrumentation in the field, and none of that data was coming in, all of our scientists in this observatory would be sitting around twiddling their thumbs all day cuz they'd have nothing to do.

>> So what got you to where you are here as a geologist?

>> I eventually went to University in Southern California and fortunately, their curriculum had you go through the four basics, biology, chemical, geology, physical.

And I just happened to take Introduction to Geology first.

And when I was at it, at that moment I knew I wanted to be a geologist.

>> So I got here, it's kind of like a roundabout way.

I took this class called rocks and rolls.

Of course when I signed up for it, I was thinking, yeah, rock and roll, cool >> [LAUGH] >> It's just my own fault for not reading things.

>> [LAUGH] >> But it turns out rocks and rolls was a geology program.

I came here and for the first time, I was exposed to this profession of natural science and geology and particular volcanology.

I fell in love with it.

First time I saw molten rock flowing, and got to scoop it, and do that kind of work, I was just hooked.

[MUSIC] >> [crosstalk] >>I feel like I'm on a Disney ride, like the Pirates of the Caribbean.

>> Did you have any doubts about what you wanted to do about geology?

>> I was not a really good student.

I had difficulty learning and midway through college, I'm sure you guys have experienced struggling with the curriculum you're interested in.

I remember that feeling of doubt, do I really wanna do this?

I didn't know it was this hard.

>> Yeah, so I'm fairly new to the college game.

Finishing off my first semester, it's been a real transition for me.

Just coming out of high school and yeah, it's hard.

I took my biology course, and it's just a pre-requisite, and I'm afraid that if I can't even find interest in this pre-requisite, simple biology, how am I supposed to find interest in things that are deeper into the topic?

>> When you get to college, you're the boss.

You paid your professor a lot of money to teach you this curriculum.

If you're not learning when you're in class, you need to have a sit-down chat with that employee of yours which is the professor.

So go to their office, set up a meeting with your professor and say, look, we got a problem here.

You ain't doing a good job.

You're teaching this stuff and I'm not getting any of it.

So, how are we gonna work this out?

>> I really like that, you are the boss.

>> [LAUGH] >> It's kind of cool to hear you talk about where you are, where you wanna go.

How certain you are that you want to get there.

Not exactly sure where that is.

We all go through that but it really excites me that there are people like you.

>> [LAUGH] >> I'm excited by your enthusiasm for science, and I'm glad to see that it can still happen in a local environment.

Go for it.

Imuah.

[LAUGH] >> Imuah means to go forward, optimistically.

[LAUGH] >> Thank you so much.

>> They had some really good stuff to say to us.

To have that kind of mentality like, this is my life and I'm gonna take charge of it.

I feel like that builds a lot of confidence.

>> I like that.

[MUSIC] >> We went back up to the observatory.

I've been over there many times in the past few years and I think that night was probably the most activity I'd seen.

We sat there for so long, and we were just kinda talking and watching the volcano, waiting for the sun to go down, for the glow to come out, and then it did.

[MUSIC] >>As I was growing up as a child I always associated lava with Pele.

Knowing that you know the scientific side of things, and understanding volcanos, do you still believe in those legends?

>> Believe in them?

[COUGH] I don't believe in them literally.

But even though I know that about what's going on out there, to see it and to witness it and just to watch it, how it acts sort of randomly, but not quite randomly.

It's really easy to imagine that there are, well, in fact I know, that there are other forces involved.

And I'm not saying that there's some sort of supernatural thing going on, it's just that it's such an incredible phenomenon to watch.

A lava fountain, or a lava flow or something, they're just an amazing thing to witness.

It is not a normal thing.

[MUSIC] >> So traditionally, Hawaiians and almost every ahupua or district or community had a fish pond, because the fish pond was designed to basically feed the entire community and this was your source of certain types of fish so you didn't have to go out.

So we got to meet Kamala, who is one of the founders of Honokea Fishpond.

And as somebody who just loves loko i'a, and I love the idea of a fish pond where anyone can be together, I was just blown away.

I was just interested from the start.

When you and your crew first started putting the loko i'a together, I'm just wondering.

>> Yeah.

>> [CROSSTALK] >> We're gonna do this.

>> We just kind of started jamming.

Moving rocks around, and then slowly, we let the community know that we talked to the schools, and we're like, bring the kids down, we're gonna start working on the loko i'a.

And then the next you know, we're meeting other loko i'a people, and they're sending you resources, how to properly build a rock wall, and it just motivated us even more to just continue.

>> You think you can give us a little tour?

>> Yeah.

>> Okay, let's go for this walk, yeah.

[MUSIC] What we do is when the kids come, we say, hey this is how we build it.

We go and we build around, and then we make sure to get the hollow in the space in the middle for the fish, but we don't tell them how to do it, we just tell them what it's for.

And then we kinda let the groups use their imaginations and build something to how they think the fish might like it, right?

So every single one is unique.

[MUSIC] >> That fish pond, it's the best community collaborative project I've seen in a long time.

They bring in so many school groups, they bring in anyone who's interested.

If someone wants to help then they're like come, come help us.

>> We talked a lot about Hawaiian culture and also.

>> Yes.

>> Modern science.

>> Yes.

>> In college, I go to Whitman and it's in Walla Walla, Washington and it's hard to explain to people where you come from and why I wanna go into science because I want to show that my people are scientists, too.

>> Yeah.

>> Like in a different way, not exactly the same way you think and that's not a a bad thing.

And for me, I always struggle with that.

>> It's so important that the lives of the future generations depends on it.

We want to feed the community, that's what it's all about.

The culture is at the foundation, the practices are for everyone, from mountain to sea.

That's why the whole ahupua system was created, for the benefit the Hawaiians, and I'm talking Hawaiian humans.

I'm talking Hawaiian birds and Hawaiian fish and Hawaiian, everything Hawaiian, anything to make this place thrive.

She was talking to me about the importance of our Hawaiian culture first.

And to hear another person just kinda reaffirm that as much as I love science I also love who I am, my identity as a person.

>> Okay, it says Ai Kamea loaa In other words eat what get, or in more philosophical terms, it's be happy with what you have.

[MUSIC] [SOUND] >> We finished up in Hilo after few days.

Came over here and we're in Kona.

Today's our last day here before we fly to Mali which is pretty exciting.

Right now we're going to NELHA, Natural Energy Lab of Hawaii Authority.

So NELHA is great.

The thing that they want to do is use the resources that we have here, sea water and sunlight and just find all the different ways to use them.

And I was thinking I had passed this place so many times, I had wanted to go so many times, but I just never did.

So, I was like, I'll see if I can find someone there and I found Keith.

He was stoked to do this and he wanted to give us a tour of the facility and he was a wealth of knowledge, which makes sense being the chief science officer.

>> Whoa that's a huge guy.

>> Nice.

>> [SOUND] >> Do they ever try to sneak out?

>> Yeah, they do.

>> A lot of the jobs here at NELHA are those get out and do things because they're an aqua culture, so you have to feed the fish, but you have to take the pH of the water.

So it's both indoor outdoor.

>> So they running test at the moment to understand how much energy you can create, and our governor has asked to have our energy a 100% renewable by 2045.

So, in other to meet that goal you need to come up with technologies like this.

So that is your kuleana right, that's what you need to do.

>> [LAUGH] >> NELHA, it was really cool.

>> So we got to see a lot of facilities and the companies like Neil.

>> We were able to interview Neil Sims, being the Kampachi Farms cofounder.

>> I grew up in Australia, obviously from the accent, grew up one and a half stone throws from the beach.

My house is about as far from the water as we are here now.

So I wasted my entire youth just goofing off at the beach, surfing and snorkeling and fishing.

I really liked biology, so I always had an ant farm, I had a butterfly collection, I just liked, the ant farm was a disaster, ask my mum about that.

[LAUGH] But so I figured marine biology was, if you do biology in Australia there's a fairly good chance you're gonna be a kangaroo biologist.

And you're gonna be 600 miles from the ocean out somewhere in the Outback.

And I didn't want that, I wanted be somewhere near the water.

And so I'm trained as a fisheries biologist and a marine biologist.

I have witnessed first hand just our capacity to really wreak havoc out there in the ocean.

Population on the planet by 2050 is going to be nine billion people.

Fishing by itself to feed the planet makes about as much sense as hunting deer makes to feed all of Europe.

It makes no sense.

So if we're going to feed nine billion people with seafood, it's got to be seafood that we figure out how to farm.

We get about 2% of the planet's food from 70% of its ocean space.

Our vision, it is to figure out how to sustainably grow the proteins that we need out where we've got room to grow.

These tanks that we walked past here, these are all on this side, here's where all the Kampachi feed trials are going on.

Each of those tanks has got about 20 Kampachi and we feed them with different diets.

They think we're gonna feed them.

>> Yeah, I realize.

>> [INAUDIBLE] >> Whoa.

>> Whoa.

>> I didn't really know what to think of.

Cuz I knew it was an energy plant, but I thought it was a totally different type of energy plant.

And even meeting Neal, I was kinda like ooh, because he was doing aquaculture and farming fish, I was like no.

Like is this gonna be an interview where they're just gonna grill the guy?

But I didn't know if he was a fish biologist.

I didn't know all these different things.

I never would have thought that I'd be like yeah, maybe aquaculture would be kind of cool.

>> Pumping ocean water to grow fish and algae and limu and all this kind of stuff.

That made me think, why is this not being used anywhere in our islands?

[LAUGH] This is so important.

>> Particularly when you're in college, it's a golden opportunity to be able to go and expose yourself to new ideas, whole new fields.

The whole way through my undergraduate, there was this creek run down the middle of the campus.

And all of the hard sciences were on this side.

But the last year, I went and did a geography course.

And that was the only class that I took that was on the other side of the creek in the geography department.

So cross the creek would be the first one.

The other would be cross the ocean.

>> To be able to bring an understanding from one location and see how it might apply to a new location, that's really powerful.

And then the third thing would be, you gotta build bridges.

Nobody can do this stuff by themselves.

We wanna get our tendrils out into the broader scientific community and we wanna find out what other people are doing.

And we wanna be able to build on that and exchange ideas with them.

Because the more you get ideas bouncing around, the better your ideas become.

Cross the creek, cross the bridge.

Cross the creek, who's going to cross the creek?

>> [LAUGH] >> I saw you writing it.

>> I got it wrong.

Okay, [crostalk].

All right, who will I cross the bridge with?

>> Cross it out.

There we go.

>> Cross the creek.

Cross the ocean.

Build bridges.

You guys didn't say anything, right?

None of you.

[MUSIC] [LAUGH] >> Neal Simms, his main thing that he left us with was cross the creek, cross the ocean and build bridges.

Great advice.

Don't be afraid to take a step in somewhere and try something new.

[MUSIC] Growing up, I'd have to take a step back and view things from like a tourist perspective.

And it wasn't until I did that that I really realized what there was.

So, we went to Waipi'o Valley.

>> It was just this big, beautiful beach.

[MUSIC] >> That was my first time in Waipi'o Valley, and it was a black sand beach which I loved.

>> It was a really good time.

We met a wild horse.

>> [MUSIC] [LAUGH] >> Sometimes you really have to view things from at tourist's perspective where you go around the island and just check everything out.

You're just in utter amazement by the simplest things, and then from there you just found something you might be passionate about.

[MUSIC] [SOUND] [MUSIC] >> We're heading on over to Maui.

>> We are going to drop off the Jeep and then we're going to all go to the airport.

Thanks.

>> Mm-hm.

>> This was awesome.

>> [LAUGH] >> Gimmie, you're going to the airport.

[MUSIC] I feel like we've been on the island of Hawaii for so long.

>> With the time we had, we did great with showing the different sides of the island, different things you can experience here.

But on the other hand, we have barely breached the surface of what's on this island.

Maybe we'll need to add another week to this trip and come back.

[LAUGH] [MUSIC] We just picked up the Jeep that we're gonna use to travel around Maui with, and we kinda decked it out with all of our Roadtrip Nation gear.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> The next morning, we had to be up pretty early to go whale watching.

I see some boats!

So, we got to out with the research vessel that serves for NOAA.

>> [INAUDIBLE] >> Thank you.

>> Carmen, Malia, Beau, and Ted, they were our crew.

Carmen, she showed us like all the gear that they used to free entangled whales.

>> So, now these are very sharp.

This is a cutting knife.

It screws into the end of a pole.

See how this is soft on this little end right here?

That's so that as it touches the whale, you're not just cutting straight into the whale, right?

But then it gets the line, and [SOUND].

>> I got some in.

>> Often, they get entangled on that fluke, right, that's stuck right there.

[MUSIC] When it's caught on there, right?

>> [SOUND] >> Hello.

>> Cut, there's a whale off the stern.

>> What the heck!

>> I guess they weren't expecting us to see a lot of whales, which is kind of funny because we ended up seeing a lot.

>> Hey, a whale!

>> [MUSIC] >> [SOUND] >> Aah!

[MUSIC] Get it, get it.

>> Whoa.

>> His tail!

>> And at first it started out seeing, like way off in the distance and we'd see like one spout and another spout and then over on this side we'd see another spout and then coming up right behind us.

>> [APPLAUSE] [MUSIC] There's two.

My gosh.

[LAUGH] It was so cute.

>> We got to see a baby breach like for the first time, practice out his breach and he was doing little tricks for us and doing chin slaps.

He would jump out of the water, the baby.

He'd jump out of the water then off in the distance we'd see another whale jump out of the water.

It's almost like they were talking back and forth.

>> That was beautiful.

[MUSIC] >> More than ever I think the problems that needed to be solved now have to be done with a whole new way of thinking.

I'm super hopeful when I meet people like you and I think that there's a real reason to be optimistic.

Yeah, I think we're gonna solve climate change, I think that we're gonna solve coral bleaching, I think that we're gonna solve a lot of things.

I think that we can figure it out.

I think that there's a lot of despair and sort of gloom about the direction the environment's going.

But I'm very optimistic about human ingenuity and the ability to use science to actually tackle some of the really important problems.

So I'm very optimistic about the future >> You're making me all optoimistic too [LAUGH } >> Yeah, [LAUGH] >> The average age of the engineer of the team that put the man on the moon was 29.

So that means they were 19 when they set forth that dream we are gonna put a man on the moon, but each of you individually can say, what is my man-on-the-moon goal that I want to solve, that's how you have to think in order to move this forward.

Right, not just my career, not just what do I want to do for a living but, really, what is gonna be important to me?

[MUSIC] You always hear growing up in school you are the next generation you are the change.

But I think it's different to hear it from your teacher and then different to hear it from people who work in these fields.

Like people who are working for NOAA, people who are in conservation, or who are doing all these different things that are so important right now like if they're telling us, that people like me, Traven, and Kea are the next generation of leaders who make things a lot better hopefully, for the planet, that I think that's very inspiring, because sometimes I'm like, like how much change can one person bring.

And hearing all of that, one person can bring a lot of change.

And I think it's time that we do change for the better.

>> After Maui, we packed up and finally came to my island which is Oahu.

>> It so just happened the Pipe Masters was going on.

>> There's a lot of different things that we look out when we're predicting waves.

We're looking for those storms that are gonna generate wind over the ocean.

We're looking for those storms that are gonna generate wind over the ocean.

Pretty much ever since that first time I got on the canoe, I've been totally hooked, and it's like I never really left the canoe.

>> Mount Ka'ala is the highest peak on Oahu.

>> Whoa, whoa, whoa.

>> This is amazing, this is so cool.

>> To learn more about how to get involved or to watch interviews from the road, visit roadtripnation.com.

[MUSIC]