Middle School CAS Rotations

The CAS program stands for Creativity, Activity and Service and is introduced in Middle School to prepare the students for this element of the IB Diploma.

This program will consist of four cycles that will take place one lesson per week. Each student will do all the activities by the end of the four cycles.

 

Art and Wellness

 

 

Students will discover how art and wellness are connected through a series of creative artistic and mindful activities.

They will also learn that through art they can create positive mental states, especially when their talents are shared outside of the classroom.  This year, students will be helping to beautify our campus by painting vibrant colors and patterns on our lost and found wooden chest, as well as adding a fresh, exciting coat of paint to our outdoor shed.

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History of Video Games

In this CAS club, students read about, do research on, and try out historical video game software, spanning from the 1950's all the way to the early 1990's. This study seeks to foster their understanding of the interaction between abstraction and creativity and its importance for the development of the technology we use everywhere now.

During this cycle, they acquire further intellectual curiosity for the area and talk about ways to explore computer engineering and software development as career choices. The sessions include information about the technical challenges, the hardware breakthroughs, and even the impact the games had on the public psyche at the time.

The games used during this activity include: Noughts & Crosses (1952), Tennis for Two (1958), Hammurabi (1968), The Oregon Trail (1971), Pong (1972), Lunar Lander (1973), Breakout (1976), Space Invaders (1978), Donkey Kong (1981), Tetris (1984), Super Mario Bros (1985) and Sonic The Hedgehog (1991).

 

Care Crafts

 

 

 

Students will learn and explore useful craft techniques like macrame and embroidery, with the aim of designing at least one high quality craft product. We will choose a care project for product donation. By choosing a care project we will embrace the service element of CAS, and by creating a high quality craft product we will cover the creativity and activity components of the course.

 

 

Documenting the Life of a Middle Schooler

Students work in groups to create a short film that documents their lives as middle-school students. They plan a story, write a script, interview subjects and film scenes. At the end of the time period, students edit footage and create a short video that can be published for public-viewing.