25th/Nov./2022

CAS Learning Outcome:

6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance

7: Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions

As a part of the ServICE Conference I attended, there was a BYB trip (Burst Your Bubble trip). I went to the mangrove in Samut Songkhram province in Thailand to plant some trees. After going to the Mangrove Conservation Center by a van, we got on the boat to go in the mangrove. We first fed the monkeys in the mangrove to show that we are harmless. I was surprised by the number of monkeys living in the mangrove. Then, we planted some trees by getting off from the boat and walking a bit on the mud. As it was my first time coming to the mangrove, I was astonished to see how trees are growing from the salty sea water, and how soft the mud was. 

As the amount of carbon dioxide is increasing and leading to global warming, it is important to have plants that can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. Because mangroves are shrinking due to human activities to cut down trees in mangrove to make space for other businesses, humans now need to plant trees by ourselves to restore mangroves. By visiting the mangrove, I got to know that there are such unique forests in the world, and I am honored to be in part of the planting activity. 

13th/Dec./2022

CAS Learning Outcome:

6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance

7: Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions

I participated in the Beach Cleanup trip in the LOL Club (Love Ocean Life Club) to the Bang Saen beach. Although I have been to many different beaches in my life, this was my first time coming to a beach to pick up trashes. I have known that littering at the beach has been a problem for a quite some time, and fish are actually consuming plastic waste littered at the beach, so the plastic waste is going into the food chain, causing serious diseases in different organisms, including humans. I am honored to be in part of this beach cleaning process. 

I realized that most of the trash we found came from food or drink that people have at the beach, such as bottle caps (both plastic caps and metal caps from glass beer bottles), rubber bands from tying the plastic bag of street food, and cigarette buds. It seemed like people usually ignore the small waste from these food or drink products and litter them. We picked them up and separated into categories, so we can recycle them. I myself learned to be more careful not to litter, especially those small trashes, because it's hard to notice. 

15th/Feb./2023

CAS Learning Outcomes:

1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

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

3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

5: Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively

6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance

As a leader of the ASL Club at school, I was inspired by the fact that ASL members before the Covid pandemic had a visit to the deaf school to interact with students there and let them have fun. Therefore, I and another leader planned a trip to Setsatian School for the Deaf by contacting the school and planning what kind of activities the students would enjoy. I also contacted the graduates who visited this school in the past, and got some advice of what to do and what not to do. Because Thai speakers were necessary in order to contact the school, the help of Thai speaking members were appreciated. Although we came up with a lot of different activities, we did not know the environment of the school (what kind of room we are interacting, what equipment there is, how old the students would be, etc.), so we were prepared to conduct any kind of activities. 

When we first entered the room, we were asked to introduce ourselves. We created our own sign names beforehand, so we were prepared to introduce ourselves using sign language. Because in the room, students were already sitting at long tables, we decided to start off with making cranes and hearts by using origami papers that I brought. Because not all members were experienced in origami and there were many students, it was difficult to teach all students at the same time. However, many of the deaf students knew how to do origami, so they were enjoying picking designed origami papers that I brought and folded by themselves. It was my fault that I did not teach the members origami beforehand, I saw those members fooling and laughing around with the deaf students who also did not know how to do origami, so I was relieved to see them having fun regardless. 

After an hour or so, we moved onto playing UNO and matching game. As of matching game, we made our own cards with pictures that we learned the ASL of, by printing those pictures out, cutting colored papers, and sticking them beforehand. Because the deaf children were around the age of middle school students, we were afraid matching game may be too childish for them, we saw them actually enjoying the matching game, so we all had fun. During the matching game, the deaf students taught us Thai sign language of the pictures on cards, and we taught them the American sign language of those words. Although most of the words were the same in TSL and ASL, there were still some words that were different, and it was interesting to know the difference. We also enjoyed UNO, because UNO is a universal game that everyone knew how to play. 

Although it was a bit awkward at first, we eventually got to interact with them casually and laugh together. We asked each other our names and where we are from. They also taught us many TSL words, which was a great experience for us. At the end, we all enjoyed taking pictures together and exchanging Instagram. After this trip, some of the deaf students texted us and even video called to teach us further TSL. They seemed to be friends with us. It was also a great experience for us to know how deaf students at similar age as us are doing at school, and I was able to develop more communication skills. 

I believe that my strength was that I was able to improvise conducting origami, which we did not prepare in the meetings beforehand, but my area for growth would be to prepare more beforehand. Now that we know the environment of the school, we know which activities are more suitable, so we can prepare more accordingly using our experiences. This event was not possible without the collaboration of everyone that was involved, including club members, our club advisor Ms. Jessica, deaf students, and teachers at the deaf school. I hope that this event was also enjoyable for the deaf students.

After visiting Setsatian School for the Deaf, we also visited the Yim Soo Cafe, a cafe that hires deaf workers and has a blind owner. There was a big screen of how to order using sign language, so we ordered our drinks using sign language. I learned that there is such a disabled friendly working place, and hopefully our contribution could help them more. I hope that there are more disabled friendly working place like this.