IB Highlights: CAS Experiences, IB Exams & Visual Arts

CAS Experience Highlights: CAS experiences for all of our Upper School students (in the US and in China) include helping with the All-School Talent Show, volunteering at a local food bank, taking a dog on a jog, taking pictures, donating blood, walking dogs, making cookies, bowling, participating in cross country, participating in FTC Robotics, hiking, participating in the trans day of visibility, making rings, replanting flowers, attending a hand gun shooting class, volunteering at a café, caring for stray dogs at a shelter, teaching younger kids piano, and hiking at Palouse Falls.   

IB Question of the Week:  What are other countries doing about administering IB exams this year?  
In the United States, whether a school is on the exam or non-exam route for May 2021 exams is determined individually, since each school can have a different status.  SGS is on the non-exam route.  These countries also are on the non-exam route like SGS: Panama, Indonesia, Poland, Lebanon, India, Turkey, United Kingdom, France, Mexico, Iraq, Canada, Colombia, Pakistan and Ecuador.  These countries are giving exams: Egypt, Norway, Spain, Brazil, Kenya, Tanzania, Greece, Switzerland, Zambia, Jordan, Bulgaria, Argentina, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, Ukraine, Iceland, Australia, Costa Rica, Sweden, China and Romania.

IB Visual Arts Highlight:
In IB Visual Art, students are assessed in three ways: 
1. A comparative study in which students analyze and compare different artworks by different artists. This independent critical and contextual investigation explores artworks, objects and artifacts from differing cultural contexts;
2. A process portfolio in which students submit carefully selected materials which evidence their experimentation, exploration, manipulation and refinement of a variety of visual arts activities during the two year course;
3. And an exhibition in which the selected pieces should show evidence of their technical accomplishment during the visual arts course and an understanding of the use of materials, ideas and practices appropriate to visual communication.

Three IB Visual Art seniors, Sydney Bledsoe, Dana Mogensen and Josie Melville, have their exhibitions completed and on display in the Upper School.  See the article on the IB Art Exhibits for details about each student's artwork and links to see their exhibits.

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.