CAS projects

differences between a project and an experience

CAS experiences and projects are slightly different. Almost anything you propose can be an experience. The CAS project requires a time requirement of 24 hours + 2 months minimum, and that you must act as a leader and a planner for a CAS project. The project itself should have some deliverable outcome(s), i.e. a final product. 

As I may have mentioned before, almost anything outside of partisan politics and proselytizing can become a CAS experience if students are engaged in the 5 stages: investigation, planning, action, reflection, and demonstration. The CAS project has a few basic parameters: 

• 24 hours of work + 2 months of engagement;

• the project should combine at least 2 strands: creativity, activity, and service;

• the project should be collaborative, whether candidates chooses to work within their IB community or the greater one;

• the project should have some deliverable, i.e. a product, whether that be an event, a piece of art, a manual, a tool, some sort of construction, etc.

How can I turn a CAS experience into a project?

The simple answer is by leading and planning something for that experience. There is such a range of responses to this question that you should chat with your CAS coordinator so that s/he can advise you about your specific idea, but I will offer a few examples. Say you are a member of a club, like the Go Club. What about creating a tournament? You are part of the Creative Minds Club? Try establishing a Creative Arts Festival like two seniors from the class of 2019 did. You coach a team? Create a playbook or some sort of player's manual. Think of what a project is for any of your academic classes: some sort of final product of your knowledge. How can you tie your understanding of a project in a class to CAS? Create something. Hold an event. Make something happen.

Video: What is a CAS project?

Great examples of CAS projects from a variety of other schools

There are myriad outside sites that offer explanations of great projects, so we will use these sites as a basis for instruction. 

• IBO website: CAS projects (a very basic list of one example per strand)

• UAIS CAS website: CAS project examples (includes a detailed list of present projects that students attending that school can become involved with)

• US IB CAS: Project Ideas (American School of Madrid; a great list organized by subject area, i.e. area of knowledge)

• Ideas from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School

What does a CAS project proposal look like?

All good proposals deal with the 5 Ws: with whom you are working, what you are doing, where this experience will take place, when you are doing it, and perhaps even why this experience is important to you or the community. However, you need to think about how you will deal with your project. To that end, how are you engaging in the stages of CAS: investigating your ideas and concepts, planning the actual project, doing the project itself, reflecting on the project so that you are demonstrating the chosen Learning Outcomes? Time to be in charge. Time to be. Game on.

A few issues to work through

What if I am the captain of a team or the officer of a club? Is that experience a project?

Participating in a sport or a club does not constitute a project. Acting as a captain or an officer in a club certainly constitutes leadership but does not automatically count as a CAS project. Creating a plan for your role in this activity does not constitute the initiation and planning that a CAS project requires. You need to be the initiator and plan something in order to count this experience as a project. Like a project. Get it? Some students are creating training manuals for their volunteer positions. Others are making websites or building animal pens or making an album or completing a specific project in their roles. This project requires you to be taking a leadership role beyond the title alone. 

What will you create or plan as a captain/officer that is different from other young people who are also serving in these capacities? Remember, participating is not the CAS project -- it is when you are leading or co-leading in collaboration with others. You are doing just that, but you need to plan some sort of activity or project. For example, can you create a series of coaching plans for each practice that deal with cardio and sport-specific skills that you can model? Can you come up with an event within your organization to offer service to the community or draw awareness to a specific need within the global community? Can you create a manual or timeline for future captains/officers? Come up with a project rather than an experience. To that end, choose whether to revise your description or change the role of this activity from project to experience.

Does coaching work as a CAS project?

Coaching may be a project to you but not necessarily for CAS. Simply accepting the plan that VYS or FPYC or whatever organization you are a part of does not constitute the initiation and planning that a CAS project requires. You need to be the initiator and plan something in order to count this experience as a project. You need to have some sort of deliverable, like a science project. Get it? It's a project that you create. Some students create training manuals for their volunteer positions. Others are making websites or building animal pens or making an album or delivering something as part of their role as the project leader. The CAS project requires you to be taking a leadership role beyond the title alone. What will you create or plan as a coach that is different from other young people who are also coaching? This element of your coaching experience is where you can fine tune what you have written so far. How will you plan specific practices? What will your short-term (think weekly practices) and long-term (think season long) goals be? Are you taking other coaches’ plans and merely implementing them, or are you creating your own?

I coached lacrosse for over 15 years. I think of a coaching project as something like a matrix. My coaches and I created a list of skills and drills that we wanted to work on every day, then projected what we could complete in a week, and then what we wanted to hit on a monthly basis. I focused on broad concepts like stick skills, conditioning, field sense, specific plays, and mental health/focus/conditioning. I established learning targets for the week like outlet passes, resilience, coverage and made sure that all drills dealt with offensive and defensive ways of thinking about outlet passes, resilience, coverage. When I reviewed my drills and the matrix I created at the end of a week or a two-week period, I could determine whether we had worked on specific skills too much or not enough. In short, I created a plan that required me to focus my attention on short- and long-term goals.

Remember, participating is not the CAS project. A project focuses on how you are leading or co-leading in collaboration with others. You are doing just that, but you need to plan some sort of activity or project. For example, can you create a series of coaching plans for each practice that deal with cardio and sport-specific skills that you know you need to teach? Can you create a manual for young coaches based on current research? Come up with a project rather than an experience. To that end, choose whether to revise your description or change the role of this activity from project to experience.

Thoughts from seniors

• Eleanor H.: "Being that CAS is a two-year ]program], having that much time gives it more opportunity for growth....I started [my CAS project during the senior year] as an extension of the one that I did junior year. Both kind of continuing my book drive but also expanding on it in a more international level and different resources being collected...[Eventually], I went to Hopetown and met the principal and met the kids. I got to see who [else] was benefiting instead of only thinking how I benefited."

• Holi R.: “Didn’t realize the amount of work necessary. I wish that I had thought more about the process and the planning” at an earlier stage.