C.A.S. Student Handbook

• CAS Experiences: Students must engage in CAS experiences involving one or more of the three CAS strands. A CAS experience can be a single event or an extended series of events. 5-8 experiences are required. CAS experiences must met all learning outcomes at least once. CAS students are required to submit evidence of their experiences to ManageBAC.
• CAS Stages: Investigation, preparation, action, reflection, and demonstration. Students must use these stages as the framework for CAS experiences and the CAS Project.

1. Investigation: Students identify their interests, skills and talents to be used in considering opportunities for CAS experiences, as well as areas for personal growth and development. Students investigate what they want to do and determine the purpose for their CAS experience. In the case of service, students identify a need they want to address.
2. Preparation: Students clarify roles and responsibilities, develop a plan of actions to be taken, identify specified resources and timelines, and acquire any skills as needed to engage in the CAS experience.
3. Action: Students implement their idea or plan. This often requires decision-making and problem solving. Students may work individually, with partners, or in groups.
4. Reflection: Students describe what happened, express feelings, generate ideas, and raise questions. Reflection can occur at any time during CAS to further understanding, to assist with revising plans, to learn from the experience, and to make explicit connections between their growth, accomplishments, and the learning outcomes for personal awareness. Reflection may lead to new action.
5. Demonstration: Students make explicit what and how they learned and what they have accomplished, for example, by sharing their CAS experience through their CAS portfolio or with others in an informal or formal manner. Through demonstration and communication, students solidify their understanding and evoke response from others.
   • Reflection: There is a strong emphasis on reflection. It is central to building a deep and rich experience in CAS. (See below- CAS Reflections)
   • CAS Project (See below- CAS Project). 

CAS Learning Outcomes:

The project and other experiences must show evidence in each of the seven learning outcomes which are as follows:

1. Identify own strengths and develop areas of growth
2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills
3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
4. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experience
5. Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
6. Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
7. Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

Logging CAS Experiences:

• Activities logged must be completed during Junior & Senior year
• Must record activities and submit detailed reflections through ManageBac.

* A parent, guardian, or family member cannot be listed as a supervisor for any activity or project.​

This will also be presented as your senior project in the 2nd semester of your senior year.

A major component of CAS is the CAS Project. Students in the DP must complete one major student initiated collaborative project integrating one or more strands of C/A/S (Ex: Creativity or Service and Action or Creativity, Action & Service). The duration of a project must be a month or more from planning to completion. Each student involved in the project must have a significant role and will describe their role and experience on ManageBAC. When you log your project into ManageBac please identify that it is your project. Please post photos, video, links, etc as proof of your project.

CAS requires students to take part in a range of activities and projects. These should always involve:

• real, purposeful activities, with significant outcomes
• personal challenge
• thoughtful consideration, such as planning, reviewing progress, reporting
• reflection on outcomes and personal learning. 

Below are examples of some general ideas for the CAS Project:

• Creativity: A student group plans, designs and creates a mural.

• Activity: Students organize and participate in a sports team including training sessions and matches against other teams.
• Service: Students set up and conduct tutoring for people in need.
• Creativity and activity: Students choreograph a routine for their marching band.
• Service and activity: Students plan and participate in the planting and maintenance of a garden with members of the local community.
• Service and creativity: Students identify that children at a local school need backpacks and subsequently design and make the backpacks out of recycled materials.
• Creativity, activity, and service: Students rehearse and perform a dance production for a community retirement home.​

*Please see Ms. Salazar if you have questions or concerns about the project. 

Also, this is a reminder that parents, guardians, and family members cannot be a supervisor for any activity.​

Defining CAS Strands:

Creativity: Creativity in CAS provides students with the opportunity to explore their own sense of original thinking and expression. Creativity will come from the student's talents, interests, passions, emotional responses, and imagination; the form of expression is limitless. This may include visual and performing arts, digital design, writing, film, culinary arts, crafts and composition.

Activity: The aim of the “Activity" strand is to promote lifelong healthy habits related to physical well-being. Pursuits may include individual and team sports, aerobic exercise, dance, outdoor recreation, fitness training, and any other form of physical exertion that purposefully contributes to a healthy lifestyle.

Service: The aim of the “Service" strand is for students to understand their capacity to make a meaningful contribution to their community and society. Through service, students develop and apply personal and social skills in real-life situations involving decision-making, problem-solving, initiative, responsibility, and accountability for their actions.

Four types of service action is recommended that students engage with different types of service within their CAS programme. These types of action are as follows.

• Direct service: Student interaction involves people, the environment or animals. For example, this can appear as one-on-one tutoring, developing a garden in partnership with refugees, or working in an animal shelter.
• Indirect service: Though students do not see the recipients of indirect service, they have verified their actions will benefit the community or environment. For example, this can appear as re-designing a non-profit organization's website, writing original picture books to teach a language, or nurturing tree seedlings for planting.
• Advocacy: Students speak on behalf of a cause or concern to promote action on an issue of public interest. For example, this may appear as initiating an awareness campaign on hunger, performing a play on replacing bullying with respect, or creating a video on sustainable water solutions.
• Research: Students collect information through varied sources, analyse data, and report on a topic of importance to influence policy or practice. For example, they may conduct environmental surveys to influence their school, contribute to a study of animal migration, compile effective means to reduce litter in public spaces, or conduct social research by interviewing people on topics such as homelessness, unemployment or isolation.

All proposed CAS activities must meet four criteria:

1. Real, purposeful activities, with significant outcomes
2. Personal challenge – tasks must extend the student and be achievable in scope
3. Thoughtful consideration, such as planning, reviewing progress, reporting
4. Reflection on outcomes and personal learning

Suggested CAS Activities:

Creativity: ​Art Club, Band/Orchestra, FIDM Club, Choreography/Dance Team, Chior, Drama & Theater, Tutoring, Yearbook, Newspaper, Science Club, Photography

Activity: ​
The activity requirement must have a measurable and obtainable goal that you, the student, develop.  If you have a running plan or fitness plan please keep a log with dates as evidence of the activity.

Baseball, Basketball, Cheerleading, Track​, Horse Back Riding, Golf, Cross Country, Soccer, Football, Softball, Cycling, Swimming, Dance, Tennis​, Field Hockey, Hiking, Volleyball,​Zumba/aerobics, Sport training program such as an organized fitness plan or running plan, Activity Classes/Lessons such as Martial Arts and Yoga.

Service: Church, Hospital-Medical/Dental office, Homeless shelter, Adult school.

Volunteering in: Camps, Day Care Centers, Elementary Schools, Women's Shelters, Nursing Homes, Museums.​​

Students are required to:

1. Self-review at the beginning of their CAS experience and set personal goals for what they hope to achieve
2. Plan, do and reflect (plan activities, carry them out and reflect on what they have learned)
3. Formal interviews, 3 times with the CAS coordinator – set by the CAS coordinator.
4. Take part in a variety of activities, including at least one project they have initiated themselves
5. Keep records of their activities and achievements
6. Show evidence of achievement of the eight CAS learning outcomes:

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth
• undertaken new challenges
• planned and initiated activities
• worked collaboratively with others
• shown perseverance and commitment in their activities
• engaged with issues of global importance
• considered the ethical implications of their actions
• developed new skills​