• This is a course scheduled into the regular school day. However, it is scheduled for the first three semesters of IB so that students may have additional time to focus on their Higher Level courses in the final semester of IB. At the end of grade 11 students complete the TOK Exhibition and in the first semester of grade 12 students complete the TOK essay.

  • The TOK Exhibition is meant for students to explore how TOK manifests in the world around them. Students do this by selecting three objects on a related theme and explaining how those objects connect to a prompt provided by the IB. For example a student may select three objects related to how language functions in the world such as a school textbook, a billboard and a screenshot of an advertisement on a social media platform. Then the student will explain how those relate to a prompt like "What counts as good evidence for a claim?" or "What is the relationship between knowledge and culture?"

  • The TOK essay is a challenging piece of writing in response to a conceptual prompt like, “'There is no reason why we cannot link facts and theories across disciplines and create a common groundwork of explanation.' To what extent do you agree with this statement?” or “There is no such thing as a neutral question. Evaluate this statement with reference to two areas of knowledge.”

• A link to the IB's 2 page subject brief by the IB about Theory of Knowledge

• A link to the ICS Extended Essay research site, built and maintained by our Secondary Librarian who is also our EE Coordinator. This site contains a wealth of information on the entire EE process at ICS.

• A link to the IB's 2 page subject brief by the IB about the Extended Essay

All students in grades 11-12 at ICS Addis participate in a wide range of experiences focused on engaging in creativity, being active and performing service. CAS is organized around those three strands defined as follows.

• Creativity—exploring and extending ideas leading to an original or interpretive product or performance

• Activity—physical exertion contributing to a healthy lifestyle

• Service—collaborative and reciprocal engagement with the community in response to an authentic need

The IB’s CAS framework challenges students to reflect on their own personal growth through the experiences they select. Reflection is focused on the following seven CAS learning outcomes: strength and growth, challenges and skills, global engagement, initiative and planning, commitment and perseverance, collaborative skills and ethics of choices and actions.

A few resources to provide more detail on what CAS looks like at ICS

• A link to the presentation given to the 2022 cohort in January of 2021 launching the CAS program in the 2020-2021 school year. Due to coronavirus CAS was only allowed to happen on "Impact Fridays" and only starting in the second semester. However, the presentation was given over multiple days and contains a both broad overview of what CAS looks like at ICS and detailed specifics of how to document and share CAS experiences.

• A link to the CAS Basics document that helped launch CAS for the 2021 Cohort in August of 2019. This is a more text-based document that explains the requirements of CAS at ICS.

• A link to the IB's 2 page subject brief about Creativity, Activity, Service