What is a CAS experience?
"A CAS experience is a specific event in which the student engages with one or more of the three CAS strands*." It may be a single event or a series of events. Though students may include some single unplanned events in their CAS program, a meaningful program will be planned and include on-going experiences.
CAS experiences must meet the following four criteria:
fit within one or more of the CAS strands (Creativity, Activity, Service)
be based on personal interest, skill, talent or opportunity for growth
provide opportunities to develop the attributes of the IB learner profile
not be used or included in the student's Diploma course requirements
It is useful to use these questions in assessing the suitability of a proposed experience:
Will the experience be enjoyable?
Does the experience allow for development of personal interests, skills and/or talents?
What new possibilities or challenges could the experience provide?
What might be possible consequences of your CAS experience for you, others and the environment?
Which CAS learning outcomes may be addressed?
Single CAS Experiences
An example of a single CAS experience might be helping at the school Welcome Fair. This is a volunteer event for our community, so it can be considered Service. A group of students may organize games and activities for younger children, providing them with the opportunity to collaboratively plan activities. CAS stages may or may not be used in these cases.
Series of CAS Experiences
Most CAS experiences should fall into this category. Examples would include participation on a sports team, piano lessons, weekly visits to a nursing home and any other long-term activity. A series of experiences typically provides many opportunities for meeting multiple Learning Outcomes. CAS stages should be used.
*All of the information and quotes on this page are from the CAS Guide, 2015, published by IB. Some of the information has been paraphrased in the interest of brevity and clarity, and some has been taken verbatim.