IB Highlights: CAS & Junior EEs

SGS students in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme participated in a variety of Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) experiences in the past few weeks.  Juniors also are working on their Extended Essays.  Here are some details on both...

CAS Experience Highlights: CAS experiences for all of our Upper School students (in the US and in China) include playing volleyball, donating blood, cleaning trash around the school, relocating saplings and smaller trees to a better area, playing soccer, painting pictures, building car tools, painting an electric scooter, decorating a house, working in the Biology greenhouse, baking cookies, helping with the clothing drive, picking up trash, programming for FTC Robotics, teaching computer gaming lessons, making valentines to send to St. Jude’s Hospital, attending a World Sleep Day free clinical treatment as a volunteer, rehearsal for the violin, going on a drive, participating in the WA State Debate Tournament, geocaching, and building a half scale model engine.

CORE Highlight:  Juniors & Extended Essays
The juniors working on their EEs are setting up a time to have their first formal meeting with their supervisor.  This meeting should be a 20-minute discussion about the research question, methodology, and any difficulties they might be having.  The students will then write a reflection about the meeting in ManageBac where they outline:
• Their ideas regarding the topic in general
• The research question they have in mind
• Initial background reading or research they may have conducted
• Possible approaches
• Initial thoughts about the answer to their research question

The initial reflection should be about 100 words.  This is the first of three reflections throughout the process of writing their EE, and it can answer any number of the following Guiding Questions:
• What exactly do I want to find out?
• What possible question(s) might I research?
• Do I have sufficient knowledge of the subject area to fulfill the criteria of an EE?
• Is there sufficient focus to my research area?
• What am I interested in researching and why?
• What are my motivations for undertaking research in this area?
• How will I begin the research process?
• What problems do I anticipate in my research?
• What resources do I plan to use?
• Have I found any sources with conflicting viewpoints?
• Have I been able to find relevant sources from different eras?
• What challenges did I encounter in finding relevant sources?
• How do I think I might use my sources?
• What possible answers might there be to my research question?

IB Overview:  The Diploma Programme (DP) curriculum for grades 11-12 is made up of six subject groups and the DP core, comprising Theory of Knowledge (TOK), Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) and the Extended Essay (EE).  Please refer to our IB webpage and to the IB Resources page in PowerSchool Learning for detailed IB information.