Welcome to CAS Profiles, where we exhibit the completed CAS Projects of IB Diploma students at SASPD. 

CAS, which stands for “Creativity, Activity, Service”, is a component of the IB Diploma Program, which requires students to complete a month-long activity following the stages of investigation, preparation, action, reflection, and demonstration. There are virtually no restrictions to activities students are allowed to do, but they must be collaborative and include at least one strand of creativity, activity, or service. The project process involves not only the main project, but also a series of reflections.

Nicole and Amber utilized prior knowledge and experience in a service club they founded to spread awareness about gender and stereotypes. Having adapted to Covid, their project reached a larger-than-expected audience within the SASPD community and served to increase discourse surrounding traditionally stigmatized topics.

Interview conducted with Nicole Tan 23’ and Amber Lim 23’.

q) Could you introduce your project?

a) We planned a series of lesson sessions catered towards 5th graders centered around gender identity and stereotypes. Some of our objectives were for students to be able to distinguish gender and biological sex, define and identify gender roles and stereotypes, and recognize the importance of compassion and understanding when it comes to these topics. Since we went into lockdown before we could hold the sessions in person, we adapted them into two interactive videos instead.

q) Where did the idea for this project come from, and what compelled you two to go with it?

a) Honestly I think the idea of working with elementary schoolers might have come from the club we started, Rainbow Spectrum, since it’s a DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging)-focused club for high school. We thought that since we were already working with high school on events like Pride Week and Gender Inequality Awareness Week, it’d be good to expand out to the lower grades as a “test run” of sorts for our club.

q) Sounds like the lockdown posed a restriction on your guys’ plans, how did you two decide on your plan B and navigate that?

a) We initially agreed with the fifth-grade teachers to wait a couple of weeks to see how circumstances would change, but once it became apparent that we’d likely be on distance learning for the rest of the school year, we decided to just compile all our research into videos. Since we wanted to keep the interactive/fun element, we thought of multiple “games” and stories we could tell over the video format, and we designed the videos allowing students to pause and discuss or brainstorm.

q) That’s creative! and how was this video distributed to the students?

a) Since last year the energy was kind of dead because of months of distance learning, our supervisor told us she could get in contact with the middle school so they could show the rising sixth graders (the grade we were planning to work with) the videos at the beginning of the year, along with the rising fifth graders, so our videos were shown to two grades actually!

q) That worked out then! You mentioned before that this project was sort of an extension of a club you two started, and this project sort of acted as a “test run” for lower grades. How did you guys get feedback about this, and what did the feedback have to say?

a) We got feedback from the DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) counselor and fifth grade teacher we were working with, Mr. Holdsworth and Ms. Covell respectively. They said they were really impressed with the videos and thought the kids were too, especially our “original” content since I wrote this story about body-swapping that was meant to show how gender is a part of identity irrespective of anatomy. Honestly, I kind of wish the feedback would have been more constructive since they mostly said nice things.

q) A common theme I’m noticing in some CAS projects is that they’re an extension of some activities you guys already are a part of in school, do you guys plan to use any part of this project or feedback received to better Rainbow Spectrum then?

a) We’re planning on working with the middle school division for our upcoming Pride Week actually, since the counselor we worked with for our CAS Project is now our club supervisor! Overall, we are trying to broaden the two main events that we did last school year to engage in activities that have a larger impact on our community.