November 2017

IB Diploma
CAScade
This month we start a regular feature focusing on what the IB students are doing for their Creativity,
Activity, Service (CAS) work. Our first example of CAS is from Shilpi.
For my CAS project, I led a club for the Primary students (under the supervision
of Ms Anna) based on recycling – a globally-important issue. Looking
back, it was a great learning opportunity for me, as it gave me the chance
to identify my strengths and work on many of my weaknesses. I had never
led a club before, and the idea of leading a three-month long one was particularly
terrifying. Nevertheless, I decided to set myself the challenge.
One of the most important things this experience helped me work on was
my organisational skills. Leading a club required that I effectively communicate with people I work with
and plan ahead for every session, and this experience did indeed result in a dramatic improvement in
the quality of my planning. Halfway through this club I found out that I had to attend Extended Essay
workshops (which were also quite important for me as an IB student) that clashed with the eco club timings.
Instead of dropping the club halfway, I communicated with everyone involved and figured out a
plan that would allow me to solve the problem.
I worked past this and learnt from many other obstacles that I encountered during this experience. In
one of the sessions, I had walked into Ms Anna’s classroom, and realised that the previous activity set
for the students had been completed and that I hadn’t prepared for the next one! Thankfully, Ms Anna
had a genius backup plan, and after that session I realised just how organised I should be in order to
lead a club like this. Therefore, this experience helped me undertake new challenges and develop new
skills in the process. It helped me show perseverance and commitment and work on my collaborative
skills with the Primary students.
Overall, it was a very fulfilling experience – and the
students showed great enthusiasm and support for
any and every activity that was introduced to them.
It was a great confidence boost for me, and made
me look forward to every session we had. Awareness
about global issues such as the importance of
recycling is important and by the end of this activity
I was glad that together, we as an eco-club could
help bring the world one step closer to ecoawareness.