Biography
Chris Blake currently serves as the Director of Pacific Innovations with the Office of Teaching and Learning Innovations at Kamehameha-Kapālama. In this role, he works to examine the wisdom of our ancestors and integrate it into our present knowledge to help us to navigate into the future. Chris has been an educator in the hui ʻepekema (Science) i ke kula kiʻekiʻe ma Kamehameha-Kapālama since 2000 and has been the High School Science Department Chair since 2010. Currently, he is the kumu (teacher) of Papa Kilo Hōkū (Celestial Navigation) which takes many of the components of non-instrument traditional navigation and sailing and provides a hands-on opportunity to learn from navigators and captains from the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
Chris has been working with the Polynesian Voyaging Society since 2012, connecting with Hōkūleʻa and Hikianalia with the Mālama Honua -World-Wide Voyage in 2014-2017. He has continued his growth and development with Nainoa Thompson and Bruce Blankenfield with voyages to Ka Houpo o Kāne (InterTropical Convergence Zone) in May 2021 and the voyage to Papahānaumokuākea in June 2021. In 2022, he was selected for the crew on Hōkūleʻa as it voyaged on the ancient searoad of Kealaikahiki to Arutua, Rangiroa and Papaʻete in Tahiti.
