The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded grants to Hawaii nonprofits to help restore Nanakuli wetlands and to teach students about East Oahu watersheds, officials announced this month.

Malama Learning Center in Kapolei plans to use the $91,000 in grant money to study and restore part of the wetlands near Nanakuli Stream as well as provide hands-on education opportunities, such as water quality monitoring and wildlife and plant assessments. The center will partner with schools to host nurseries to grow the native plants used to restore the wetlands.

In Kaneohe the Pacific American Foundation, founded in 1993, was awarded $80,000 to help students in grades six through 12 learn about watersheds and land-management practices. Students will take field trips to four watersheds in East Oahu and partner with research scientists to measure water quality and analyze data.

Both grants were awarded in August through the EPA’s Environmental Education Grants Program, which has given between $2 million and $3.5 million in funding each year since 1992. The program seeks to support projects that promote environmental awareness and stewardship.

Pauline Sato, executive and program director of Malama Learning Center, said their pilot program will focus on restoring about an acre of wetlands. She said the nonprofit, which was founded in 2003, would help students from Nanakuli High and Intermediate School and Waianae and Kapolei high schools, as well as the community, “see the connection to the land and the ocean clearly.”

She added that she hopes the project will turn the area into “an outdoor learning lab” by studying the historic, environmental, social and cultural components of the wetlands.

“I think … it’s an area people know about but they don’t really think about,” Sato said. “We’re hoping that what we can learn in Nanakuli will help the community there become better stewards of the land and basically have a healthier environment we can live in.”

Sato said the center would also use some of the $100,000 in restitution paid by Waste Management Hawaii to purchase water quality equipment for the project, as well as for growing some of the plants for the wetland. The restitution stemmed from a plea agreement reached to settle a criminal case in federal court involving the spillage of millions of gallons of contaminated stormwater from Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill into the ocean in January 2011.

Derek Esibill, program director of the Pacific American Foundation’s Watershed Investigations, Research, Education and Design project, said students are able to gain valuable experience by partnering with experts in the field to work on science experiments.

He said the program, which is in its second year, has been successful in helping students study and understand the environmental, historical and cultural aspects of an area. Students are also able to recognize and address human impacts to the watersheds, he said.

“When kids get out into the field and they get their feet wet and their hands muddy, they really develop an emotional connection to that place … that drives us to care about the place,” Esibill said. “We know that kids learn so much from it.”

Sato and Esibill said their organizations plan to work together on the projects to help students from around the island share their experiences and findings.

“We figured, ‘Let’s join forces,’” Esibill said. “We can have a more comprehensive look at our island.”