For this week, we want to highlight senior Minnie Ohnback’s CAS project and Extended Essay (EE).
CAS Project Highlight: Minnie Ohnback and Yasmine Tehrani are running the Scare Away Hunger Food Drive at SGS this year. Every year at our school, we have a food drive for 2nd Harvest Food Bank around Halloween, usually run by some Upper School students. It is a completion between all the grades, K-12, to see who can bring in the most food per person. Minnie and Yasmine took this on as their CAS project and are coordinating the announcements and competition between all the divisions — Lower, Middle and Upper.
Their learning outcomes include:
• Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience;
• Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively;
• Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and action.
Extended Essay Highlight: Minnie Ohnback is asking this question for her EE in Chemistry: What concentration of NaOH is most effective in neutralizing CO gas? She is asking this question because of her love of aviation and science. She wanted to have her question applicable to the real world. Her dad was a pilot, so she grew up hearing about and seeing a lot of planes, so naturally her mind turned in the direction of planes when coming up with ideas for her EE. Since the field of science also is an area she enjoys, Minnie decided to simulate as best she could a way that the carbon emissions from jet fuel could be neutralized. Aviation makes up about 3% of worldwide carbon emissions. Minnie worked with Dr. Townley to create an experiment on a smaller scale and completed her experiment over the summer.
CAS Experience Highlights: CAS experiences for our Upper School students this week included volunteering at the Lower School Cross Country meet, walking, making a salad with produce from the Garden Club, and participating in the Camp Reed ropes course.
IB Question of the Week: Who is the Director General of the International Baccalaureate (IB)?
Mr Olli-Pekka Heinonen started his tenure as the eighth Director General of the International Baccalaureate (IB) in May 2021. You can read more about him here: https://www.ibo.org/about-the-ib/governance-and-leadership/director-general/
Please refer to the IB Page on our Website for detailed IB information. As an overview, the Diploma Programme (DP) curriculum for grades 11-12 is made up of six subject groups and the DP core, comprising theory of knowledge (TOK), creativity, activity, service (CAS) and the extended essay (EE).
