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CAS » CAS (Creativity, Activity, Service)

CAS (Creativity, Activity, Service)

Student tile project
Welcome to Creativity, Activity, and Service (CAS)!  CAS is a way for you to engage with extracurricular activities in an intentional way.
 
As you develop your CAS portfolio in ManageBac, you will reflect upon what you are learning through your extracurricular activities, and hopefully you will learn skills and discover personal passions that will last a lifetime.
 
Remember that not all CAS activities will go well.  If you volunteer to work with children in some capacity ... and then you discover you really dislike children ... at least you have learned that you don't want to be a primary school teacher!
 

CAS Tips

  • Be a risk taker as you look for and engage with CAS activities. Try something new that pushes you out of your comfort zone! 
  • Take pictures to use as "evidence" for your CAS portfolios and submit them for use in the yearbook.
  • Do CAS with friends and make fun memories!
  • Participate in service opportunities here on our own campus.  
  • Do a CAS Project that makes a difference that you can be proud of!  
Student Go Green Project

What is CAS?

CAS stands for creativity, activity, service. All IB students must complete a CAS program, which can be documented as early as the first day of junior year and continues throughout senior year (lasts a minimum of 18 months). The CAS program includes documented evidence of participating in various experiences and at least one CAS project (minimum of one month’s duration) with a reasonable balance between creativity, activity, and service.

The component's three strands, often interwoven with particular activities, are characterized as follows:

 

Creativity - exploring and extending ideas leading to an original or interpretive product or performance
Activity - physical exertion contributing to a healthy lifestyle
Service - collaborative and reciprocal engagement with the community in response to an authentic need

CAS encourages students to be involved in activities as individuals and as part of a team that take place in local, national and international contexts. Creativity, activity, service enables students to enhance their personal and interpersonal development as well as their social and civic development, through experiential learning, lending an important counterbalance to the academic pressures of the rest of the IB Diploma Programme. It should be both challenging and enjoyable - a personal journey of self-discovery that recognizes each student's individual starting point.

CAS should involve:

  • Real, purposeful activities, which meet one or more of the learning outcomes.
  • Personal challenge --- tasks must extend the student and be achievable in scope.
  • Students using the CAS stages (investigation, preparation, action, reflection, and demonstration)to guide CAS experiences and projects.
  • Thoughtful consideration, such as planning, reviewing progress, reporting (done on ManageBac).
  • Evidence and reflection on outcomes and personal learning.
 
By the end of their CAS experience as a whole, students must show evidence that they have participated in at least 21 CAS activities. A student who fails to satisfy the CAS requirement will not be awarded the IB diploma even if all other diploma conditions have been satisfactorily fulfilled.
 

Completing the CAS Program

A Diploma Programme senior will have completed the CAS programme once they have completed the following:
  • All uploads in ManageBac
  • At least 14 official CAS activities reflections, each addressing a unique CAS Learning Outcome
  • At least 21 CAS activities (balance within the three strands)
  • Student's CAS Programme Reflection with CAS Coordinator
  • One Project

CAS At Meridian