Members of the faculty of Cornell University were among the first to locate scholarly projects at The Kohala Center because of the close fit between their research and the existing intellectual, cultural, and natural assets of the Five Mountains region of Hawai'i. Cornell's internationally recognized academic departments in environmental studies and the biological sciences consider the natural environment of the Hawaiian Islands to be an extraordinarily valuable scientific and community resource that must be understood and enhanced. 

In addition to pursuing its research interests, Cornell partnered with The Kohala Center to develop an environmental sciences program for its undergraduates beginning in January 2004. The semester-long educational program places undergraduates and their supervisors in Island-managed research projects, giving the students first-hand information about real field situations and about the societal, cultural, and spiritual contexts of scientific work.

By involving K-12 students in its island-wide research projects, Cornell University provides them with important connections to senior scientists and with one another. Cornell envisions a collaborative sharing of results and building of databases which will culminate in the presentation of K-12 scientific congresses. Mentoring programs also allow Cornell's student scientists to work with younger students on island-inspired research projects.

Brown University has recently joined Cornell in offering teaching programs on Hawai`i in the environmental sciences. The Brown Environmental Leadership Laboratory developed an on-going series of programs for advanced high school students that allow them to engage with Hawai'i Island's natural and cultural environments. Brown and The Kohala Center have collaborated to offer scholarship opportunities to Hawai'i Island high school students, so that they can take their place among youthful scientific and civic leaders who operate in the U.S. national arena. Brown has also sponsored an undergraduate program about coral reef systems and is now designing additional undergraduate environmental studies courses to be held on Hawai'i Island.

The Center for Spirituality and Healing at the School of Medicine at the University of Minnesota added to educational opportunities on Hawai'i Island by launching a graduate-level summer program in ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology, Plants in Human Affairs, in July-August 2002. Subsequent sessions of this program were offered in January 2003, 2004, and 2005. Details on the upcoming 2006 program will be posted on this website in mid-2005.

The Amy Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden, the U.S. Forest Service at Hilo, the Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center, and The Kohala Center plan to establish a seed bank and seed repository that will serve Hawai'i Island ecosystems. Inspired by commitment of Island communities and the work of Dr. Susan Mazer of the University of California at Santa Barbara and the National Science Foundation, this project will integrate Native Hawaiian scientific and cultural knowledge with western scientific knowledge in the field of botany. 

Under the leadership of Dr. Charles Greene, Director of the Ocean Resources and Ecosystems Program at Cornell University, and through the coordinating efforts of The Kohala Center, a team of marine biologists and oceanographers from Scripps Oceanographic, the University of Washington, Hawai'i Institute for Marine Biology, and Woods Hole have worked with Island K-12 science educators, cultural leaders, and marine industry professionals to develop a concept for the creation of an Ocean Resources and Ecosystems Observatory that will help us monitor the quality of ocean environments and more carefully steward ocean resources. By combining physical observations and sampling with high technology, such as the use of passive underwater listening array, the Ocean Resources Observatory promises to be the most advanced center of its kind in the world.