Summer of CAS

Summer can be a great time to take on a new CAS project. Here are some ideas of activities that you can do independently. For each activity, I will explain how you must document your involvement so that the activity can be included in your CAS portfolio.

Photo-A-Day Challenge - lots of info and inspiration on the internet HERE and HERE.
 - You must create a tumblr, Instagram, blogspot blog, scrapbook, where you collect the photos that you take. You must write comments on at least 10 photos about why you took that photo or what you liked/didn't like about the photo. YOU MUST TAKE at least 1 photo EVERY DAY!
Pick any subject that interests you or think of subject that relates to global issues like this one.

Create a Video - In order for this to be a CAS project, you have to improve your video editing skills and stretch yourself creatively. Here are some examples of students' CAS projects at other schools: http://bisbcas.blogspot.com/2011/08/unusual-creativity-projects.html
Stop Motion videos can be really cool: http://mashable.com/2010/05/29/stop-motion-videos/
This online movie editing application looks awesome: http://www.magisto.com/

Cooking Blog - Start a cooking blog and set a goal for how many posts you do. For example, you could set your goal of cooking 4 things and writing a blog post for each item that you cook. You should research a few cooking blogs to see different styles. You could look up recipes of foods that you want to cook and then post pictures of the cooking process and the finished product along with commentary on how you cooked it. You could ask a parent or other family member to teach you to cook some foods and document the experience with photos and commentary. Here are some great cooking blogs to give you inspiration.
http://www.saveur.com/article/blog/2013-Best-Food-Blog-Awards-Winners

And some of my personal favorites:
http://www.101cookbooks.com/
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/
http://smittenkitchen.com/

Here are a couple of korean cooking blogs:
http://www.beyondkimchee.com/
http://bapstory.blogspot.com/

Here is a Filipino cuisine blog
http://blog.junbelen.com/tag/filipino-food/

Here is some general advice and tips of taking pics of food:
http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/shoot-first-eat-later

Final Reflections Help Session

CONSIDERED THE ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF YOUR ACTIONS

Choose ONE of your SERVICE activities from the past two years. Reflect on how your involvement in the activity relates to the following quote. Title this reflection "the ethical implications of (name of service activity)".

"Doing good is not about doing something, it's about doing the right thing." *

Alternatively, this quote could be modified to:

"Service is not about doing something, it's about doing the right thing." or
"Serving is not about serving in some way, it's about serving in the right way."

Questions to help you:

• Did you do good? What good?
• How do you determine whether you did good or not?
• What does sustainability have to do with it?
• Was your service project sustainable?
• What could you do differently in the future? 
• What is you biggest critique of the service project? 

*This quote is taken from the article "North Korea Won't Be Liberated in a Day" by Mike Deri Smith, published on themorningnews.org. It is in reference to criticisms of the the viral KONY video campaign of 2012. 

For Brent Diploma CAS Students:

Write a final reflection that answers the following question. Which CAS activity/ies has/have helped me to grow the most and how?

  

Upcoming CAS Activities - PROPOSALS!

For all possible CAS activities, you must be able to show how this, for you, is a new experience, a personal challenge and provides opportunity for growth in the learning outcomes.

- CREATIVITY -
Brent's Got Talent
Chapel Choir
Brent Day Production

- ACTION -
Boys Basketball
Girls Football
Cross Training Fitness Club - See Mr. Nichols.
Girls Tennis Club - See Mr. Wright.
Yoga - Taking a Yoga class could be a great way to survive your last semester and get mentally prepared for IB exams.
Hiking - 'Tis the season for hiking Mt. Pulag (or any other mountains in the Cordillera region)

- SERVICE -
Brent ICT Outreach Service Club - Come teach practical technology skills to disadvantaged youth in our community. Share your school's resources with those who don't have the same opportunity to access and practice technology use.

White Coats on Every Kid - Come teach fun and engaging science experiments to disadvantaged kids in our community. You will learn a lot about being a better communicator and teacher and you will have the opportunity to help kids see that school, learning, and science are FUN!

Community Service Club

G12 Homework

1. Write any missing reflections or mini-reflections for 1st semester CAS activities.

• Go here for HOW TO WRITE A QUALITY REFLECTION

2. Fill out Individual CAS Completion Form. (To be submitted when we come back from Christmas vacation.) This will help you identify where you have not demonstrated growth so that you can choose second semester activities that will fill these gaps.

3. Highlight and tag/label all of your evidence.

• Highlight the part in your reflections that shows evidence of growth in one or more of the IB CAS learning outcomes.

• Then add a label to the post identifying for which learning outcome the post exhibits evidence.

Things to remember: 

Collaboration is more than just "other people were there".

Challenge means really hard.

New Skills must be specific and named.

Engaged with Global Issues must be ACTIVE PARTICIPATION and INVOLVEMENT

Initiated means initiated - and if you were working in a group, you need to be able to show what you personally INITIATED.

CAS must be completed over an 18 month period. You must have some degree of BALANCE across the three areas: Creativity, Action, Service.

Working on Reflection

Next week, G11 students will have a study hall class devoted to CAS reflection writing. Writing good reflections is as critical to achieving growth in the eight CAS learning outcomes as participating in meaningful CAS activities is.

We will be going over various resources for developing the tool of reflective writing and practicing writing reflection for one of your current CAS activities.

Resources to check out:

• http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/onlib/pdf/reflective.pdf
• http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/onlib/reflect2.html
• http://www.clt.uts.edu.au/Scholarship/Reflective.journal.htm
• http://www.arts.ac.uk/cetl/visual-directions/flash/reflective/flash_reflective.htm
• http://library.bcu.ac.uk/learner/Study%20Skills%20Guides/7%20Reflection.htm
• http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/library/a31988_3.pdf

Are Brent students really green?

Many of you are business students. You probably have studied different marketing strategies. This article explains how different marketing strategies may or not be successful when used with different environmental initiatives.

http://www.goodlifer.com/2011/04/mainstream-green-moving-sustainability-from-niche-to-normal

The study shows how different societies are made up of different groups with different attitudes and behaviors related to "being green".

The study defines the following groups:

• Super Greens - They lead the way green behaviors. They 
• Upper Middle Greens - They recognize the need to make green choices but are sometimes detracted by high cost or great inconvenience.
• Lower Middle Greens - Tend to see impending environmental disasters as hype. They are less likely to make a decision merely on the basis of what is good for the government.
• Green Rejectors - They completely reject the idea of environmentalism. They so not see how environmental issues affect them and much less so how they should change their behaviors in order to have less impact on the environment.

How do you think that the Brent community compares with either the U.S. or China??

Image source: http://www.ogilvyearth.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/OgilvyEarth_Mainstream_Green.pdf