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Service Learning
CAS & Service as Action
Service Learning is a core element of the ISD IB curriculum that is designed to extend student learning beyond the classroom. The aim of our Service Learning programs is to help students become active and caring members of our community and demonstrate commitment to personal growth and to the needs of others.
Our Service Learning program is a collaborative and reciprocal engagement with the community in response to an authentic need. Service projects and experiences are one of the most transforming element in the IB programs. They nurture and mold the global citizen.
Service involves interaction, such as the building of links with individuals or groups in the community. The community may be the school, the local community, or it may exist on national and international levels.
Service as Action (SA) | IB MYP
The ISD Service as Action (SA) program builds on the MYP SA program for Grades 6 to 10 and prepares students for the CAS requirements of the IB Diploma Program. With guidance and support from the school, MYP students should meet the learning outcomes set to develop the skills and attributes of an IB Learner. Students must meet learning outcomes set by the IB, and have the freedom to develop their own goals and activities for SA within the school’s SA framework.
Types of Service as Action (SA):
• Direct service: Student interaction involves people, the environment or animals.
• Indirect service: Students do not see the recipients of indirect service, but have verified their actions will benefit the community or environment.
• Advocacy: Students speak on behalf of a cause or concern to promote action on an issue of public interest.
• Research: Students collect information through varied sources, analyze data, and report on a topic of importance to influence policy or practice.
Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) | IB DP
CAS is the IB requirement that all Diploma Candidates propose, participate, and document extracurricular experiences in Creativity, Activity and Service.
The aim of CREATIVITY in the CAS program is to encourage and nurture students’ innate creativity and imagination so that these abilities are developed towards their full potential. Students are encouraged to choose activities from different fields of creative arts and crafts and include in their CAS both activities that develop their areas of expertise further and areas that they are less familiar with. This strand of CAS is interpreted as imaginatively as possible to cover a wide range of arts and other activities outside the normal curriculum.
The ACTIVITY strand should be interpreted as physical exertion contributing to a healthy lifestyle. It also includes developing a life-long habit of a physically and socially active lifestyle. Through activity students are encouraged to practice sports and consider the benefits of healthy living not only for physical but also mental, social and emotional well-being. This aspect of CAS can include participation in expeditions, individual and team sports, and physical activities outside the normal curriculum; it also includes physical activity involved in carrying out creative and service projects.
The last strand of CAS is the SERVICE component as it was previously described in the general description and the Service as Action description. Creativity and activity can be enhanced by incorporating the service component. If students are involved in arts and in physical activities, they might consider coaching younger children, seniors in residential homes, homeless children, etc.
