As a major leader in Wells International School, I was selected by my school to attend a International baccalaureate(IB)/ Compass Education(CE) Youth leadership program. Through this leadership training, I got an offer to co-facilitate a Cat. 3 CAS Workshop with Marc Mesich from Osaka. I was offered to share my student experience regarding CAS, and provide feedback to the teachers regarding what the CAS programs in their schools looked like. I also gave the teachers a few scenarios where I asked the teachers to evaluate what they would do in such as situation.

During this conference, I also ended up giving a talk regarding how technology could be implemented into education programs, and essentially how it holds the future of education.

I also ended up selling water bottles for a club named Greenhawks. This was to promote the use of re-usable water bottles.

CAS Stages:

1) Investigation:

I identified my skills in leadership and decided to join the leadership program held by IB/CE. This led me to many other opportunities such as co-facilitating a CAT 3 workshop and giving a talk on the use of technology on education.

2) Preparation

I had to attend 3 leadership workshops over a time span of three months to prepare.

3) Action

I co-facilitated the CAS CAT 3 workshop and presented/ used my leadership skills I learned to help the teachers to understand their responsibilities.

4) Reflection

At the end of the workshops, I was asked to give a word to reflect what I had learned or felt, and to this day, I can say that word is, "opportunity," because it taught me how one thing can lead to several other opportunities, and how much that can help.

5) Demonstration

It was an excellent opportunity and I learned a lot about leadership and was able to convey my ideas about technology usage.

LO Connections:

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

I learned a lot about my leadership/ my leadership style and worked to get better.

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

The challenge was regarding leadership and being the best leader I can be. I had led several things before however I had never led a session where I had to teach/ facilitate teachers who were well above my age.

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

I had to do a lot of planning in order to co-facilitate the workshop as well as give the talk regarding the use of technology on education.

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

The leadership workshops took 3 days, and were spanned over a timeline of about 3 months. The conference itself was held for 3 days and required a lot of prior planning/ preparation.

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

I prepared a lot for the CAT 3 workshop with the facilitator Mr. Marc. I also benefited a lot from working with other leaders from other schools and learning about how they lead their organizations.

Learning outcome 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance

Helped sell re-usable water bottles to promote recycling and using less plastic.

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

I learned that as a leader it is very important to always be fair and ethical seeing as you are granted with a lot of power through trust and therefore you must do your best to be fair.

I spent two summers at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa conducting research.

The first year I conducted propagation research where I spent testing the effect of various rooting hormones on accessions of Melanthera Integrifolia(Nehe). This research was conducted with supervision and assistance from Dr. Orville Baldos. The research conducted was submitted as a paper for the AP Research program(Paper 1 below) and it is being presented as a poster(Poster 1 below) to the American Society for Horticultural Sciences in Orlando during August of 2020.

My second year I spent conducting research with pesticides. I evaluated fungicidal activities of commercial biological products on Plumeria Rust. It was recognized that Plumeria Rust is a huge problem in the ornamental industry therefore testing out biological fungicides was essential. I worked with Dr. Philip Waisen and several others for this project.

CAS Stages:

1) Investigation:

Both of these research projects took quite a lot of brainstorming and figuring out what the question could be. Therefore the materials that were available were looked at, and what the concerns in the industry were researched in order to figure out this question.

2) Preparation:

Researching/ gathering equipment. Figuring out a way to make the research controlled and replicable.

3) Action:

Performing the actual methodology. Took between 3-6 weeks per research project.

4) Reflection:

The data was mostly good and the results seem to be significant to the real world.

5) Demonstration:

These research could be used by companies/ researchers when planning. More of this is presented in each poster.

LO connections:

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

These two projects really helped build my research abilities and showed me how I can produce data that can actually have instant implications onto the real world.

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

The challenge was research and understanding of this agriculture field. I learned quite a lot and developed lots of skills in propagation.

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

Planned out a lot of this research and conducted the experiment. Wrote a research paper.

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

The first project took about 3 weeks to conduct and about 3 more weeks to analyse the data/ create a poster. Researching more and writing out the 5000 word in itself took about 1 more year.

The second project took about 6 weeks to conduct and looking at data + making the poster took a few more months.

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

I learned a lot from both of my supervisors regarding research and their expertise field in agriculture.

Learning outcome 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance

Both of these issues are very significant to the world. First research regarding Melanthera Integrifolia figured out which rooting hormone is the most effective hence this data can be used by farmers to better crop this crop. The second research figured out which biological fungicide works best to get rid of Plumeria Rust, and this can also be used by farmers to better grow Plumeria.

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

The consequences of performing this research was extremely positive onto the real world.