Pouhala Marsh — the largest remaining wetland habitat in the Pearl Harbor area — got a little help from Waipahu High School sophomores last week as a part of a program to preserve the watershed.

The 70-acre wetland preserve across from the Honolulu Police Academy served as an outdoor classroom for students learning about testing water quality, soil sampling and identifying wildlife and wetland plants.

The Pouhala Marsh was scheduled to become a landfill in the 1970s. Later, it would became a police Weed and Seed area, known for drug deals and illegal trash dumping.

A community development project organized by the wildlife organization 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 has restored the marsh. The project's goal is to restore habitat for native Hawaiian water birds and migratory shore birds, and to develop a natural resources management education and internship program.

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