CAS

What is CAS?

CAS stands for Creativity, Activity, Service. Essentially, you are required to engage in many different extracurriculars throughout the two years.

It is recommended that you complete approximately 150 CAS hours, although this is no longer required. You must make sure that you have completed enough experiences to meet the CAS outcomes.

What is the IB Learner Profile?

There are 10 attributes that the IB is meant to help you develop:

  • Inquirers

  • Knowledgeable

  • Thinkers

  • Communicators

  • Principled

  • Open-minded

  • Caring

  • Risk-takers

  • Balanced

  • Reflective

What are the 7 CAS outcomes?

  • Learning outcome 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

  • Learning outcome 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

  • Learning outcome 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

  • Learning outcome 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

  • Learning outcome 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

  • Learning outcome 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance

  • Learning outcome 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

The importance of CAS reflections

Possibly the most important aspect of CAS is the process of reflection. You must write reflections on every different experience you complete! If it is a long term or repetitive experience, you do not need to reflect after every session, but you need to keep track of your hours and any difficulties you encounter, any solutions you come up with, and any "Ah-ha!" moments. The main goal of your reflections is to demonstrate that you meet the learning outcomes.

Most people will write their reflections in regular paragraph form, but you aren't restricted to doing it this way! You can use creative methods of reflection, such as writing poetry, painting, performing dance or theatre, drawing, etc.

Picture evidence

You will need evidence of completing CAS experiences. The easiest way is to take pictures! However, sometimes it is not possible, so you can instead use a CAS form to get a supervisor to confirm that you did do what you said you did. Mrs. MacCorquodale will provide you with this form in grade 11.

Examples of Creativity

  • School clubs:

    • Film club

    • Debate club

  • Bullet journaling

  • Writing

  • Sewing

  • Cooking and baking

  • Tie dye crafts

  • Planning and organizing events

  • Sculpting

  • Gardening

  • Graphic design

  • Nail art

  • Knitting or crocheting

  • Felting

  • Painting

  • Collage work

  • Beadwork

  • Learning a new language

  • Music: singing or playing an instrument

  • Drawing

  • Dancing

  • Composing

  • Choreographing

  • Cross stitch


Examples of Activity

  • Grayfit or any other crossfit class

  • Karate

  • Kickboxing

  • Hockey

  • Hiking

  • Running

  • Dance

  • Volleyball

  • Swimming

  • Skating

  • Baseball

  • Yoga

  • Online workout challenges

Service

Many people will immediately picture the type of volunteering where you physically go and help a certain organization or cause, but this is not the only form of service!

The 4 types of service:

  • Direct service

    • You directly help people, like playing music at a senior's home

  • Indirect service

    • You cannot directly see the people you are helping, such as helping with a fundraiser

  • Advocacy

    • You advocate for a cause, such as through creating and spreading posters, videos, or even social media posts.

  • Research

    • You perform research and compile it to help with a certain cause or goal. For example, creating this website's page on studying advice required research of different possible methods, and then they were presented to share with IB students. Research could also include collecting your own data, such as doing polls, surveys, or petitions about a certain issue, perhaps to be used to help create a change in the community.

Examples of Service

  • Clubs:

    • Key Club

    • Environment club

  • Tutoring

    • You will get the opportunity to tutor in the math and science center during lunches

    • As a grade 11 IB, you can tutor students in pre-IB courses

    • As a grade 12 IB, you can tutor students in Grade 11 IB

    • You can also find opportunities to tutor younger kids. In Key Club, you can volunteer to run the homework club at Queen Charlottetown. You can also tutor elementary school kids, but you will need to find a way to get in contact with someone at an elementary school. You could try to find the email address of a vice-principal or other administrator at the school.

  • Volunteering at the soup kitchen

  • Volunteering at local churches and shelters

  • Planning local events for small organisations

  • Volunteering for non profit organisations

  • Volunteering your time to your neighbours and community events

    • This could be as simple as asking your elderly neighbour if they need help mowing their lawn!

  • Volunteering in the Colonel Gray Library

CAS Project Ideas

  • The things you could do for CAS project are truly endless! (as long as it takes at least 1 month)

  • You can choose to focus on any the three strands, and most likely, you will use two or more of the strands in your project. For example, the creation of this website used both creativity and service. Another example is creating a youth running group, which would use all three strands!

  • Most people tend to choose a project that focuses mainly on service

  • If you want to do a project that needs funding, there are plenty of community grants that you can apply for. Many IB students in the past have received grants to carry out their projects, such as the flag project in the cafeteria.

https://www.lanternaeducation.com/ib-blog/50-cas-project-ideas/


Overall, don't forget to have fun! You should choose to engage in experiences that you think you will enjoy or want to learn more about.