Final CAS Reflection

Now that the IBDP program is coming to an end, I now have the chance to look back over that past two years at the different ways in which I had attempted to fulling the CAS criteria, some of which were more prominent than others. When I had started my own CAS activities in 2011, I started by join the Dog Awareness Welfare Group as this was a community service group that, at the time, did not have a lot members and I felt that the issues that they had tried to raise awareness of were very important in terms of being an issue in Sri Lanka due to the large population of wild dogs and cats. This service project really helped me in developing how effectively I could collaborate with others as this project, in a sense, never presented a responsibility to a single individual. During our grades final Week Without Walls I was given the opportunity to show my own leadership skill as I had volunteered to co-organize the skit we preformed at the school.  For most of the last few months of the 2011 school year I found myself focusing mainly on D.A.W.G and not really paying any attention to doing activities that reflected Creativity and or Action and this was something that I had planned on addressing with the start of Grade 12. I found myself not continuing with D.A.W.G in Grade 12 as I had decided to involve myself in Gecko Inc. which, at the time, was a pilot service project as this was the first year it was available. What this in turn did, however, was hinder my chance of being given a leadership role because the events that we planned and the ways in which we conducted many of our meetings was very open to input by everyone, in other words, no single person truly had final say in what we decided to do. I had also decided to continue with this service activity because I felt that as I was the only one who was actually documenting each community basketball session by taking photos, I had the responsibility to continue. The ways that I had addressed Creativity and Action have also been slightly tentative over the course of this year as a result of my own poor time-management, which I later improved dramatically. I had decided that to address Creativity I wold approach multiple different forms of Creative presentation, either through the creation of music or even through the creation of 3D models. The way that I had addressed Action was through both exercise, as I had created a schedule for doing both cardio and weight training , as well as through the Walk for the Wetlands .

Addressing the eight learning outcomes directly:

Increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth Gecko Inc. allowed me to develop my skill with photography and starting new projects.

Undertaken new challenges Photography, poetry, 3D model design and music are examples of some of the new challenges I attempted even though I have very little knowledge of each subject respectfully.

Planned and initiated activities
In both D.A.W.G. and Gecko Inc. even though I did not have a leadership position, I assisted in the plan of events, especially in the case of Gecko Inc.

Worked collaboratively with others
Through both of the service activities I participated in, collaboration between everyone was important and key in making it into the success they were.

Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities
Through Gecko Inc. I show that I have been incredibly committed as I showed up to almost every session for the past eight months.

Engaged with issues of global importance
The Walk for the Wetland encompassed the idea of the loss of such environments which, even though this only referred to the Talangama Wetlands, is a global issue as governments are slowly reclaiming these environments for other uses.

Considered the ethical implications of their actions
During Week Without Walls in 2011, we were providing for the children a clean environment to learn during their education. Also by the message I try to convey through my photos of the Walk for the Wetlands.

Developed new skills
My skill with photography really improved due to Gecko Inc. as well as the Walk for the Wetlands because both situation called me to adapt my knowledge for photography to try and obtain the best possible results for the subjects I was trying to capture.

3D model design

New topic:


To further develop my engagement with Creativity, I have decided to pursue 3D model design as a way to show that I am trying to develop a skill that is not taught at this school and that this is an area of great interest to me as a gamer and concept designer. I felt that this particular topic would be very interesting for me to pursue because the market for video games is constantly evolving and changing to meet new expectations and new audiences. I have very little actual knowledge or understanding of how designers create what they do, in terms of creating subjects with seamless polygons (refer to comparison below), so most of what I will probably create will be purely based off of trial and error attempts at a final product. A point that I want to make clear about this is that what I am trying to do is merely create a sort of template model which mainly entails that I will not be going into the extreme specific details of each piece I make due to time constraints.

My area of focus:

I have decided to focus on creating spaceship models for this project. The main inspiration for this is the fact that since the spaceships used in games are fictitious with design qualities taken from real existing ships, what this does for me is it gives me a form of artistic freedom to create my own base designs and then weave in some features of modern day ships. I plan on approaching this topic in two stages. First, I will draw up concept designs of what I have in mind and discuss what I think about the piece as well as modifications that I would make to the designs. Second, I will create the 3D model and then comment on the overall impression I have of it. I will follow these steps for each model that I create.

The following is a summary of the different types of 3D spaceship designs I plan to create (all are really ship types):

-Frigate
-Battleship
-Carrier

Walk for the Wetlands

The Walk for the Wetlands is an effort by a OSC alumni to raise awareness about our neighboring Talangama Wetlands. The walk was scheduled for February 12^th and started at the school gate at 9:00. The walk incompassed the values of allowing those who took part the oppertunity to view the wetlands and to listen to a informational session that discussed the value behind preserving this wetland. This issue is of great importance, more in terms of regional importance, as these wetlands are very important ecosystem in Sri Lanka and by raising awareness on the problems possed toward the wetlands it may assist efforts to help protect these ecosystems.

I used this event as an oppertunity to engage myself with an issue of global importance as well as an oppertunity for me to develope skills with photography. During the walk I was able to take numerous photos of those who participated in the walk as well as the environment and structures that we passed on our way. The reason this really helped my skills with photography is because it forced me to adapt my photography to high light conditions, which effects the speed that the camera takes photos, and to deal with super contrasts between light and shade. What I mean by super contrast is that, for example, if I were taking a photo while standing indirect sunlight and the subject was in the shade, the subject and its direct surroundings would be considerably darker and this would hinder the photograph. 

Gecko Inc. Finished

The first semester has ended and Gecko Inc. concluded its first semester of service with a very intense four hour long basketball tournement in which all 10 teams showed up and participted. With this, I must now think about what I would want to do for the next semester as I still have another 4 or so month (minus exams) to continue with a community service activity. I plan on applying to participate in either Gecko Inc., as this will allow me to continue developing my skills with photography, or Recycling, as this was a service activity that I had participated in previously at OSC. In terms of a more indepth reason as to why I want to join either of these two programs is because both have a impact on our community, though Recycling has a much more global impact than Gecko Inc. but it is however no more important than the other.

MY GOALS FOR THE FINAL SEMESTER
- Continue with Service acivity (either Gecko Inc. or Recycling)
- Continue developing my skill in photography, this directly connects to Service activity

Gecko Inc. -Update-

We had another successful community basketball session last Saturday and we are preparing for a tournament match to take place this week-end, Saturday the 10th. For the match, we have had our members on our Facebook page form teams of those they want to play with, this sorted itself out fairly quickly and we now have  six teams participating in the tournament. From what I understand, the tournament will be organized as a round-robin type of tournament as this is a simple well known way of organizing this type of sporting event.

For the past few week-ends I have used this event as an opportunity to enhance my photography skill. I don't normally have the time on the week-end to go out and take photo in Colombo so this type of event proved to be a great way for me to both pursue a personal interest of mine and assist in our CAS's community engagement. This has also helped me understand the many functions of my Nikon D-3100, whether it be by using a faster shutter speed or by taking continuous photographs. Another factor for why I have taken up a photographer role in this CAS as well is because, with the Facebook group, as the creator of the page, I can and have given any member of the the page admin powers so that they can update information and allow acces to new members when I have not already done so.

Exemplar photo...

Service: American Embassy Halloween Haunted House

For the past three years I have agreed to assist with the American Embassy's Haunted House project on Halloween. This has been a very fun activity as this is one of the few annual events which is done by the Embassy for its community. For every years, apart from this year, I have assisted in organizing and setting up each event (in 2009 I was actually in charge of making the house ready as well as participating in it, where as in 2010 and 2011 I had no direct leadership role and in 2011 I had not assisted in the make ready).

[insert picture here]

I have really enjoyed assisting with this activity as this has allowed me to develop my collaborative and leadership skills which has allowed me to develop more commitment toward activities which I agree to participate in.