CAS

Creativity, Activity, and Service

CAS, a core component of the IB Diploma Program, emphasizes participation in meaningful experiences outside of the classroom. Students are encouraged to focus on three different strands of experiences including:

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

Here are some of the CAS projects that took place this year:

Girls in Science - East

Morgan Moniz has served as the co-president of the Girls in Science Club for the last 2 years. The purpose of this club is to provide tutoring for other students who need extra support in their science classes as well as share interesting science articles with peers! This group assisted multiple students in preparing for midterms. It also helped Morgan determine her future path; she is heading to Nursing School next year!

Art Room Staircase - East

Lucia Ciarletta worked with another peer and Ms. Abel to create a design representing themes of social justice and inclusion for the Art Room staircase. Adding a visual component that welcomes all members of our community meant a lot to her. She also got to experiment with a new medium of paints and learned more about color values and shading. Check out the finished product at the Art Building!

Art Club - West

The Sturgis West Art Club, over the last several weeks, drafted, designed, and created a music mural for Mr. Magnant and his music students. Congratulations on a great job! Participants included: Amelia Pozza, Sarah Murray, Zachary Wayner, Carly Mitchell-Richard, Lilli Palmer, Jillian Burdge, Carmody Palmer, Izzy Zine, Ellie Shields and Meredith Kinkade. Members who were absent from photo include: Emily swift, Abbie Crocker, Arthur Shea and Zoey Kheun.

Mock Trial - East

For her CAS Project, Samantha Eldridge (third from left in photo) worked with a grade 11 student to help get Mock Trial started up again. Mock Trial gives students who are interested in a career in law the opportunity to both prepare for cases as well as experience what it is like to argue a case before a judge. By the time their first and only mock trial occurred in April, Sammi was “proud of [her] team and how far [they] got with little to no experience” among most of the group members.

One Love - East

This year, Izzy Rudy, a junior at Sturgis East, started a club by the name of One Love. One Love is a foundation that works to promote healthy relationship education in regards to romantic relationships as well as friendships and familial relationships. They have shorter term goals of being more aware of the relationships in your life and therefore in the long term be able to prevent domestic abuse and intimate partner violence, an epidemic facing this country. This is especially important to high school students who are first starting to navigate relationships in their lives and who need this education in their lives as they move ahead into college and adulthood.

Through research based videos, One Love is able to relay relatable content for young people in order to spark conversation about healthy and unhealthy signs within relationships. Since September, Izzy and her amazing group of One Love trained facilitators from Sturgis East along with the Barnstable Youth Commission have managed to present workshops for Barnstable Highschool juniors and seniors, Saint John Paul juniors, junior TOK classes at East, as well as an upcoming workshop for both East and West seniors.

As a club, they have not only faced the challenges of planning and organizing workshops, but also seen the amazing effects of relationship education as well as gained leadership skills through public speaking skills. Izzy hopes to grow the club next year so that they can expand the workshops to even more high schools Cape-Wide and potentially at local libraries as well as doing more in depth training and activities for club members.

Care for the Cape Club - West

Care for the Cape Club has been working on a variety of projects this year. We have donated over $200 to the Yarmouth Food Pantry and have done several beach clean ups. This month we invited guest speaker Peter Jensen (former Peace Corps Volunteer and agroecology advisor) to come and speak to us about the importance of water conservation. He shared ideas about how we could conserve water in our own gardens and here at school!

Coaching Soccer - East

In the fall, Alex Mendez (in back at left in photo) volunteered to coach a 2nd-3rd grade soccer team for a recreational soccer program with the Yarmouth Dennis Soccer Club. Games are conducted every Saturday, and there is one practice on Wednesdays. Alex felt this was a big commitment on his part and was unlike anything he had done before. His primary goal was that the kids learn the game but have fun in the process.

Engineering Club - East

This past winter, Bethany Whitten and some friends from the Engineering Club decided to put their skills to the test and make an ice skating rink in her backyard! This was the first time they had created something on such a large scale which included woodworking, eye bolts, and use of a circular saw. Bethany’s parents oversaw the operation and assisted with design as well as landscaping. Bethany and the club were then able to use the rink for skating and ice hockey during the winter season and she plans to set it up again next year!

Treats For Treatments - West

Treats for Treatments is a club which raises money through bake sales and selling our own handmade jewelry to create personalized gift boxes for the cancer patients at Clark Cancer Center at Falmouth Hospital. Using our donations, we package various self care items like blankets, journals, teas, lotions, ginger mints, etc that will soothe the patients and make their overall treatment process for relaxing. We have made over 80 boxes so far for the patients and have received such thoughtful notes! It is truly an honor being able to help these patients in a tangible way! Sturgis West students Jackie Sastry, Raquel Collins and Kate Donohue got together and made this possible with their hard work and determination.

Hiking Club - West

In April, the Hiking Club went on their first overnight camping trip! Senior and Junior leaders planned a trip in our local backyard of Provincetown. The Hikers were overjoyed to finally be able to do an overnight trip and decided to keep it local given how beautiful and fun our great outdoors are! Before departing, students collaborated in gathering all of the necessary camping supplies and gear to ensure they were as prepared as possible.

The trip included three fabulous hikes, including the historically windy Pilgrim Monument, Jetty, and Dune's Shack Trail. Students also gained some great experience tenting and cooking while camping. They learned new recipes as well as what supplies are absolutely necessary. The trip wouldn't have been possible without the Club’s fundraising efforts, including making Waffles during lunch!

Key Club - East

Sturgis East Key Club came up with a fun plan to support Unicef Ukraine: Waffle Wednesdays! Over the last few weeks, Club members teamed up to sell waffles (with all the fixings!) during lunch. They made this a true fundraising success for Ukraine by raising $1,500 to bring to April’s Key Club Convention! 9 members attended the Convention in Springfield, MA, where they learned strategies for running a successful club as well as the causes that Key Club sponsors. The Club also hosted a Ukrainian Egg Workshop fundraiser for interested community members; this is known as Pysanky, a traditional representation of resistance art in Ukraine.

Senior Service Day

There were a number of school traditions Sturgis was able to reignite this year after a remote and hybrid learning hiatus and none were more important than Senior Service Day. For the first time in three years, the entire senior classes of East and West ventured out into the community to engage in a day of meaningful service for others. On the morning of Wednesday, May 25th, the seniors gathered to reflect on the importance of serving one’s community before they departed to a total of 26 different sites. The seniors returned in the afternoon sporting a few bug bites and sunburns, but overall they expressed feelings of gratitude and fulfillment. A few of the site highlights:

Seniors from East and West partnered with the Center for Coastal Studies to clean both Kalmus and Veterans Memorial beaches. The center reported that the students picked up over 1,000 pieces of debris. After the clean-ups, the Center analyzed the types and quantities of debris with the students and discussed what factors contribute to the types of litter we see on our beaches.

A group of seniors at West got their hands dirty by dismantling a woodchip bioreactor at a bog in Marstons Mills. Guided by the Barnstable Clean Water Coalition, the student team shoveled out woodchips from the bioreactor into wheelbarrows and loaded them into the BCWC truck for transport to an appropriate disposal facility. The students learned how this important project helps measure the amount of nitrogen that flows into our cranberry bogs. A simple, hands-on project like shoveling woodchips is an integral part of learning how to better protect our local environment!

Other sites ranged from making cards at Senior Living Centers to landscaping for CapeAbilities to helping to organize the US Vet Center. All were grateful to join together to serve one last time before graduation.

Seniors also led a “toddler carnival” at the Centerville Public Library. It was hard to know who had more fun: the seniors or the toddlers? It was a day filled with joy as our seniors not only enjoyed playing with the young ones, but they also were put in a position to serve as mature, reliable caretakers. The library requested to make the Carnival with Sturgis seniors an annual event.

Senior Service Day took place on May 25th and was a huge success! All seniors from both campuses headed to numerous organizations on the Cape to participate in various activities including: building garden beds, setting up and organizing materials for summer programs, planting flowers, cleaning beaches, and much more! Site coordinators expressed their gratitude and look forward to connecting with Sturgis next year as well.

One counterpart shared: The team that came to support us at Children’s Cove was fantastic! They worked so hard I had to find extra things for them to do (which they did of course)! It’s a pleasure working with Sturgis as a part of Senior Service Day. As an alumnus of Sturgis, it’s also wonderful to get to see how the mission of the school has continued on in its history.

Another host at Centerville Public Library said: What a special day it was! Much needed soul fuel following yet another horrific school shooting. I feel like we hit the jackpot with our group. Zero complaints - they all jumped into action and FAR exceeded my expectations, taking initiative and making excellent decisions with minimal need for guidance.

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