What are your CAS activities

[Chris Kuno]

Creativity: Film Club (making movies), Guitar and rockband (A real band...)

Service: Volunteering at a bike shop

Action: Baseball (Over 500 hours already completed)

[levy101]

My school has a ridiculous amount of clubs, so:

Creativity: choir and art club

Action: i take a yoga class, work out and joined badminton

Service: I'm an athletic trainer for my school, and I also did 'chilli for children' which is like when you serve food to poorer children

for my big project, i think i'll run a short art class for little kids: C and S cause it'll be non-profit

[Sunstorm]

Not sure yet of what to do, thinking of going kayaking for action- I've written lyrics for creativity and now i need to apply for some red cross assignment to get service bleh! It's good for me though

[Ice Cream is really yummy]

Everyone says that CAS isn't really moderated, but it totally is! We had to sign a contract stating that we will have X amount of hours (35hx3) by the end of summer, or else we would be pulled out of the IB programme. My CAS coordinator is taking her job very seriously... So just beware that just because a bunch of schools say that their CAS isn't really moderated, and the IBO people don't take a look at your profile... doesn't mean that it's true! Better be safe than sorry.

Keep up with your CAS, no matter what people around you say. And, honestly, do it for yourself. Do what you want to do, and the hours will fill up just like magic

Ideas:

Creativity: Anything that does not go under A or S; choir, talents, taking up classes...

Action: Anything that gets your heart racing, make sure that you sweat a LITTLE!!! But, having said that, you might not always break a sweat while rock climbing, or something.

Service: Give up your time. Give back to your community. Get connections, and keep your eyes open for volunteer opportunity. You should also try to see if you can do something as a CAS class group. That way you might enjoy it a little more while still sharing your experience with your friends

So once again, keep up with CAS. 3-4 hours per week should do the trick. Also, always talk to your CAS supervisor and get your activities approved if your focus was to make it count for CAS. If it does not count towards CAS, don't worry! Do it for yourself Don't let CAS bring you down, it's there to lift you up

Edited July 7, 2011 by egr12resa

[ChikkyD]

I hate CAS with a passion. This MIGHT, potentially, probably, be due to my lack of time management .

Creativity: Mooting, Zumba, Peer Mentoring (Tutoring), Other forms of tutoring (French, maths, English).

Action: Zumba/dance, gym

Service: Senior committee, tutoring, mooting.

I'll admit I genuinely like the tutoring activities I do. And zumba . But that's about it. The rest I do because I have to . I hope future generations of IB students actually learn to enjoy CAS...

[Arrowhead]

As much as I despised my boarding school, they offered us a number of opportunities for CAS, I will give them that.

Service: We had a branch of Habitat for Humanity and they did one trip a year to help build homes across Europe, in my 12th grade they went to poverty-stricken areas of Portugal to do so. Throughout the year they would hold bake-sales and such to raise funds.

We had Assisting Children in Need (ACN), which was a localised, smaller charity organisation that raised funds to provide medication for children from broken homes, abused, HIV+, etc. I was Vice President of this organisation in my old school and we went on a trip in my 11th grade to Romania where we spent days upon days playing with and getting to know the children we had helped. One of the more heart-breaking incidents however was when one of the kids convinced us to go with her to meet her mother who had come down from Bucharest. This little girl was maybe 9 years old and we secreted her away to meet her mother. She stood outside her mother's door with flowers in hand and her mother opened it, took one look at her, took the flowers and threw them aside, then banged the door shut on her face. The poor girl was in tears, but this fake smile was plastered on her face and she just kept saying that she was happy she got to see her mother once. It was just devastating.

We also had Swiss Refugee camps where we would go to a local shelter in Switzerland that housed refugees and visit old age homes to give the people there company for the day. Some of them had some really amazing stories to tell.

Action: We had, I think, about 10-15 different sports clubs, all the traditional ones like Football, Basketball, Swimming, etc. But we had some really amazing ones as well like hiking trips and we would immediately get 15 hours of action per year by snowboarding and skiing which was a winter-time activity for us.

Creativity: I don't even know where to start. I think at the end of my 11th grade, I had 150 hours of just Creativity with Theatre shows (2 a year), MUN, Debates, Literature Society, school newspaper, Open Mic (music club), show choir, acapella choir, music recitals, music classes, leadership camps, student-organisation workshops on anything under the bloody sun. It was fantastic!

[gbiftu]

I really enjoy CAS. So far, we've created a Halloween event for children under the age of 10 at a major recreational center in our city, we organized a choir to sing at senior homes for Christmas, I started up a Cinema Club where we make movies promoting either the school or important global events, my friend has set up an ESL talk at our school where they talk about different teenager issues that we face everyday, we created the first Council of Academic Achievement at our school which promotes academic achievement, we participated in a proposal to change the whole education system in our province, my friend did a "Cuts for Cancer" kind of thing, where she cut her long locks for cancer, and this fall, we are creating a fundraiser to raise money to place a water filtration system for hopefully one or more villages in Ethiopia.

I love CAS!

[BrookeBurdis]

For CAS i'm going to Senegal in Africa to work with children and teach in a school we have bought them computers and are going to teach them how to use them and create a summer school ! I leave on sunday!

[White94]

My school offers alot for CAS.

For service they offer: Young Enterprise, Charity work, Drama help, Cleaning jobs (for example, sorting through the drama cupboard, not general floor mopping) and they also inform all IB students of any and all opportunities outside school.

Action is all pretty sport based, the school offers rugby, field hockey, swimming, lacrosse, football, volleyball, basketball and dance.

For creativity, that is mainly found by the students, but art can be taken as an extra curricular subject and they inform us of anything coming up either within the school, for Drama and things, or outside the school.

I completed service in 2 subjects, I went over the 50 hours because I participated in Wings of Hope Achievement Award and went to the house of lords to give a presentation (we didn't win) but we did get to organize muggle quidditch

Edited July 19, 2011 by White94

[lullabyy]

I'm still not sure but I want to do:

C - movies' club

A - dancing (school), fitness (school) and swimming

S - completing a course of medical volunteer, being a volunteer at a hospice and also in the hospital (next summer)

[christran]

I've been looking around here and it seems that the way my school does CAS is really different than how the rest of the world does it. Hours are given so liberally at my school. Our coordinator gives 10 for each club you join and remain active in, and 15 if you are an officer of the club. I would have already finished half of my hours if I were I to write all my reflections at this moment. She also gives 20 or 30 blocks of hours if we were to do something big such as leave the country. We're not really told to separate what we do into creativity, action or service, so collectively, students have really imbalanced hours. The thing is though, my school offers CAS+ as an incentive to reach 300 hours. If we complete CAS+, we receive a stole to wear at graduation and usually, all students reach that 300. This is all really enlightening.

[Rachel_97]

I am in grade 9 and starting pre-IB. I have to do 40 hours of community service in grades 9-10 and then 150 CAS in grades 11-12.

For grade 9-10 I will volunteer at the YMCA and join Volunteer Now club at my school.

In grade 11-12 for creativity: I take private piano lessons... Does this count? Do I include practices or just lessons? Does Model United Nations club count for creativity? What do you do in that club?

For action: I will join school sports teams.

Service: Volunteer Now; volunteer at local hospital ( I want to go into medicine); what else gets you a lot of hours in Canada?

[Rachel_97]

I'm still not sure but I want to do:

C - movies' club

A - dancing (school), fitness (school) and swimming

S - completing a course of medical volunteer, being a volunteer at a hospice and also in the hospital (next summer)

Edited September 2, 2011 by Rachel_97

[Rachel_97]

Do you know where near Toronto Canada that I could do medical volunteer course?

[kim luffy]

our school offers limited CAS activities and i personally hate the action part of it :/ but enjoy the service and creativity. I think i love the service more then the other two.

Service: Juvenile visit every monday, Orphanage visit every friday and saturday.

Action: Jogging, Dancing, volleyball and football with the Juvenile kids.

Creativity: Singing at the variety shows in school, organizing the show, teaching the kids at the orphanage and juvenile + others i can't remember.

We have our CAS trip coming up so that should be fun as well

[Rachel_97]

our school offers limited CAS activities and i personally hate the action part of it :/ but enjoy the service and creativity. I think i love the service more then the other two.

Service: Juvenile visit every monday, Orphanage visit every friday and saturday.

Action: Jogging, Dancing, volleyball and football with the Juvenile kids.

Creativity: Singing at the variety shows in school, organizing the show, teaching the kids at the orphanage and juvenile + others i can't remember.

We have our CAS trip coming up so that should be fun as well

[Rachel_97]

our school offers limited CAS activities and i personally hate the action part of it :/ but enjoy the service and creativity. I think i love the service more then the other two.

Service: Juvenile visit every monday, Orphanage visit every friday and saturday.

Action: Jogging, Dancing, volleyball and football with theJuvenile kids.

Creativity: Singing at the variety shows in school, organizing the show, teaching the kids at the orphanage and juvenile + others i can't remember.

We have our CAS trip coming up so that should be fun as

well

[/quote

What is the CAS trip?

[kim luffy]

Oh the CAS trip is we go anywhere and do more CAS outside of school. We spend like 4 days? outside Dar (where i live). Like for us we're going to this place called Sadani. It's a national park and there's a lot to do in terms of CAS. I thought all schools that offer IB had it?

[ShootingStars]

So many of them I don't know how to list them.

Tip to everyone looking on this thread to find activities/suggestions for activities: Just do what you love. If you dance, dance. If you play guitar, play guitar. If you run, run. If you've always wanted to help out at an animal shelter, go do it. If you want to walk dogs for others, walk dogs.

As for CAS trips - they're usually service trips, mostly organised by the school to a third world country/LEDC etc. Its a great way to get like 30 hours done in a week whilst having fun with all your friends, so definitely look into it. If your school doesn't already offer CAS trips, talk to the CAS coordinator/supervisor and try and arrange one. Show some initiative guys!

CAS doesn't have to be painful, it's there to make sure we get a little bit of a social life while we're buried in all the work

[Rachel_97]

Oh the CAS trip is we go anywhere and do more CAS outside of school. We spend like 4 days? outside Dar (where i live). Like for us we're going to this place called Sadani. It's a national park and there's a lot to do in terms of CAS. I thought all schools that offer IB had it?

Well, my school might have it. I'm just in pre-IB so I don't know. How many hours can you get for CAS there? How much does the trip cost?