WAIPAHU — Slabs of reddish brown mud clung to the Waipahu High School students' sneakers as they tromped around the Pouhala Marsh — the largest remaining wetland habitat in the Pearl Harbor area.

Tucked behind a neighborhood and across from the Honolulu Police Academy, this 70-acre wetland preserve served as yesterday's outdoor classroom for students learning about testing water quality, soil sampling and identifying wildlife and wetland plants.

Many of the sophomores had no idea there was a marshland in their community — and no idea about how to use water quality testers or identify loamy soil or the various birds in the marsh.

Maylene Cabacungan a 15-year-old Waipahu High sophomore, was one in muddy shoes. It didn't matter; she was having a good time.

"I got to learn more about what's going on with the environment," Cabacungan said. "I always wondered what this place looked like."

The field trip yesterday was the brainchild of Sherry Wakumoto, a Waipahu High science teacher. She saw the excursion as a way to learn about the watershed in a real-life, tactile way.

"This is their watershed in their community," Wakumoto said. "This marsh is an important place because they're trying to restore it."

The Pouhala Marsh was once destined to be a landfill in the 1970s. Later, it would become a police Weed and Seed area, a habitat better known for drug dealers and illegal trash haulers than native wildlife.

That has slowly been turning around through the backbreaking, land-moving efforts of volunteers and scientists who have carved out the habitat.

The Pouhala Marsh is what it is today because it is a Community Development project organized by Ducks Unlimited, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Forestry and Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the city Department of Environmental Services. The project's goal is to restore habitat for native Hawaiian water birds and migratory shore birds, and develop a natural resources management education and internship program.

"There's an emerging awareness of the need for protecting and preserving these kind of wetlands," said Christina R. McGuire, DLNR wetland coordinator. "I want to instill a sense of stewardship so the students can go home and tell their parents about how important it is to protect the wetlands."

The restoration work has been a long journey, said Kevin Kinvig of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service. "There's been a concerted effort to turn it into a community asset," he said.

Students from high schools around O'ahu come to learn about the wetland environment McGuire said, and each year the Hawai'i Nature Center brings school groups to weed out invasive species.

"It was very educational," said Rylan Benigno, 15. "We learned about the birds and the water. I never knew we had this place out here."

Last year, Rep. Rida Cabanilla, D-42nd (Waipahu, Honouliuli, 'Ewa), backed an attempt to appropriate $200,000 to obtain $600,000 in matching federal funds that would be used for the habitat restoration project. The money also would be used to develop an education and job training center where people could be taught about the natural, cultural and historical features of the area. The effort stalled in committee, but she vowed to push for it at the next legislative session.

Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com.