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CAS PROJECT: Reflection and the learner profile

NAME: Cindy Cieniek

PROJECT: Gingerbread cookies for “Christmas With The Poor” event

Reflection is used to demonstrate achievement of the learner profile. Rather than the achievement of the learner profile as the impetus for reflection, guide students to aim for meaningful CAS experiences. Then, upon reflection, they can consider whether their experience has helped them to develop one or more of the learner profile attributes. 

How do my choices and actions model empathy, compassion and respect for others?

For those people who suffered from the pandemic, encouragement and support is very vital. With it, they can be aware that we share how they feel and acknowledge their pain. This experience allowed us to demonstrate respectful behavior towards poor individuals and show our good intentions. If people see others treating one another with respect, they will do the same. In addition, actions proved our good intentions since sometimes words may not be enough. Therefore, our choices and actions model empathy, compassion and respect for others since with them we can share our care. In our case, we wanted to bake gingerbread cookies and give them to the organization that organized Christmas dinner for poor and homeless people. One of my main tasks was to decorate the cookies. I put a lot of effort into that because I wanted to show people our sincerity (that we had baked all of them and carefully decorated all of them by ourselves).

How does this CAS experience allow me to become a genuine inquirer?

This CAS experience required us to do our own research which we normally don't do as a schoolwork. We had to look into our surroundings and based on the circumstances, try to engage with society. Therefore, our experience was different than others, we had to look on our own how to help the group that we wanted to and it was not something that we could follow someone. This is the reason why it is so genuine. It was our own initiative. One of our teammates had attended dinners in the previous years. But since this year the circumstances were special because of the pandemic, we didn’t know in the beginning how the organization of the dinner for poor and homeless people would be organized this year and we were really curious about it. And, this led us to explore further and seek answers to our questions. I often went to the organizers' website to check for new updates

To what extent do my CAS experiences encourage creative and critical thinking?

My CAS experiences encouraged creative and critical thinking, on a high level. Since we had to do the planning by ourselves, it was very important for us to find the most efficient way that guaranteed the high rate of success. And our biggest problem was how to organize everything in times of pandemic. We did not know in the beginning what we clearly wanted to do. The end result arose thanks to the brainstorming. We had to talk with each other, come up with solutions and then choose the one with which we all agreed on more. It was a process in which we had to use creative and critical thinking. And, to solve our biggest problem, we eventually baked cookies with our masks on and only Emilia delivered the goods to the organization. Additionally, decorating the cookies also required some creativity since all of them were done differently.

How do the ethical issues that arise in my CAS experiences allow me to become principled?

Since we were doing the project during the pandemic, our main ethical issue was how to safely bake the cookies. We had to keep in mind the safety of all members and the government’s restrictions. Therefore, we made cookies in a large kitchen with our masks on and opened the window for more fresh air. In addition, we sanitized all our hands. This way, we ensured that the project was safe and did not endangered anyone.

How does my CAS experience allow for intellectual and/or physical risk-taking in a supportive environment?

My CAS experience contained some risk-taking aspects, since in the beginning we were not sure whether the event will take place due to the increasing number of infections and whether it will be canceled at the last minute. However, our determination and our willingness to be involved in this event contributed to taking the risk. Although we had many concerns throughout the project, we managed to solve them. For example: when we missed the first organizational meeting, we quickly messaged the organizers whether we can also help them. Surely, the first organizational meeting would gave us more details but overall we found informations by other means (for example where the  food was collected)

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CAS Project Proposal Form

CAS Handbook - IB World School 051200  

1. Complete all the sections below.  

2. Have the form signed by your parent/legal guardian. Keep one copy for yourself. 

3. Deliver the form to your CAS coordinator in due time.  

Student’s name: Cindy Cieniek 

Tutor: Katarzyna Długołęcka 

Members of the group: Emilia Mizielińska, Maja Przeździecka, Dominika Petykiewicz, Cindy Cieniek Cieniek, Marta Maślińska, Olga Hołówka,

Title of project : Helping with the organization of Christmas dinner for homeless and poor 

Project description: What is your project? Be as specific as possible. 

Sant Edigio is a community that supports the poor as well as homeless people in Poland. Every year, they organize a Christmas dinner to help the needy. As the organization promotes. „This is more than just a meal. This is a solemn meeting of friends at the festive table.” In order to prepare a Christmas meal for 500 people, volunteers are needed who will get involved before Christmas. Our group decided to help in the organization of this event by baking and decorating cookies, which we will deliver in the last week before Christmas.

Final Results: What do you hope to accomplish? Why is it needed? Who will it benefit? 

We want to support the organization of the Christmas event because of its good cause as it helps people who cannot afford to celebrate Christmas Day. Further, this year is difficult for everyone because of the sudden outbreak of the pandemic. Celebration is needed, especially when everyone experiences loneliness and material difficulties right now.

CAS Handbook - IB World School 051200  

Learning outcomes: Which of the 7 Learning Outcomes (see the list) will be addressed in  this project? Explain how each Learning Outcome will be addressed?  

1. Identify own strengths and develop areas for personal growth. 

During our project we will have to work as a team so our teamwork and good communication will be assessed.  Moreover, we will be able to improve not only our planning but also our baking and decorating skills.

2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.

It is a new experience for me. This will be my first time helping the Edigio community so this experience will be enriching. I believe this project will be challenging as we will have to organize everything by ourselves during the pandemic (with all the restrictions).

3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.

This project has many stages so we will have to discuss our goals and create a detailed plan to later distribute the work and improve the efficiency. That way, we will be able to boost our chances of a chance of achieving success.

4. Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.

We will divide the workload among all the team members so we will be able to finish everything a lot faster and all necessary tasks will be completed.

5. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS activities

This project cannot be done at once we have to do everything before 25/10/2020.

6. Demonstrate engagement with issues of global importance.

There are a lot of people in Warsaw yet there is little help provided for individuals in such a difficult situation like a pandemic and this project enables us to help those people. It is worth mentioning that during the Christmas Day organised by Edigio, people also receive presents.�� Most often, these are items that will help homeless people survive the winter such as warm jackets, shoes, sleeping bags as well as cosmetics and sweets.

7. Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

During the process of planning our project , we will consider the governmental restrictions because of the ongoing pandemic. We will execute the project in a safe environment, to limit the possibility of harming lives.

Additional info: Data on supervisor (contact), other.  

Parent’s signature ______Nguyen Kieu Trang_____ Date ___30.11.2020__________  

Student’s signature ____Cindy Cieniek_________________ Date ___30.11.2020__________  

CAS coordinator’s signature _____________________ Date _____________  

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CAS CREATIVITY 22.02.21

I tried a new recipe. I wanted to try a new food (this time originated from china) since for a long time I have been cooiking the same dishes. As it was my first time to form the dumplings, the shapes weren’t as I wanted them to be. As it can be seen in the photo, they are a bit unregural. Therefore, I see some room for improvement. In addition, I could not decide whether I should fry or boil them hence I did both. Both ways turned out really good. There was surely a difference two methods. The boiled ones were a bit blant but it was not a problem. Overall, I liked both of them. However, in the future I would rather boil them since it is much easier than fruing them (sometimes they sticked to the pan)

Learning outcome: 1, 2

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CAS ACTIVITY 15.02.21

As I have been doing the Chloe Ting exercises. I have been focusing in majority on my legs/lower body parts. This made me realize that I should also do the upper exercises. As I was looking for videos. I found this one (linked below) which had many views and focused on the whole body. Therefore, to work out my whole body, I tried it out. At the end of the video I felt the burning sensation mostly in my upper body, which reassured me even more that I have been not focusing on upper body parts since earlier I mostly felt the burning in the legs or stomach. This video helped me to exercise muscles that earlier I did not. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBMk30rjy0o

Learning outcome: 1

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CAS CREATIVITY 20.01.21

I have been thinking  a lot about on how I should decorate my room and I came up with the idea to use the water colors again that I have learned during my CAS Creativity. I am really proud of the result. I had a the same problem as I had my first time. Again I did not wait enough for it to dry and by accident the water blew out from the area I wanted it to stay on, so I had to paint the whole background green to fix it. This way, I managed to safe my work. My sister told me that she thought that I did it on purpose and that the background looks good. However, in my opinion i would make rather have a white background but I will surely remember this for the next time.

Learning outcome: 1

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CAS CREATIVITY 28.12.20

I have been planning for a long time to do for myself a decoupage and therefore I pushed myself to try it. I had to do some research about the method and buy a finishing glue.  The process wasn’t that hard. The majority of the work was painting. And the end result is so satisfying since it looks like a box bought from the shop. 

Duration: 3-4 hours (with waiting for dry)

Learning outcome:1, 2, 3, 4,

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https://www.chloeting.com/

CAS ACTION 20.11.20

Since the weather has been much colder and in summer, I was to busy to run. I have decided to keep exercising at home. The 30 day Yoga challenge inspired me to do different exersises avaible online and as I have been randomly doing them, I cam upon the website that is linked above. This helped me so much to organize my workout plan.

Duration of one workout: about 20-40 min

Learning outcomes: 5

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CAS SERVICE 16.11.20

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CAS CREATIVITY 12.10.20

Since, for a long time, I have not practiced my drawing abilities, during my free time I recreated my past drawing. I wanted to practice my hand as well as check myself. This is the ending result. I kept doing changes. However, I am really satisfied at the end result. Further, I believe that this drawing turned out much better than the earlier one. I could have made the hand more straight as it is a bit weirdly turned but I happy since I always rather had the problem with fingers and here they turned out great.

Duration: 1,5h

Learning outcome:1, 5

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CAS CREATIVITY 05.10.20

With my cousin we did matching necklaces. Since my sisters has many materials, it was rather easy but very enojable. My sisters had very long nails so I was responsible for inserting the beads. in the beginning we use smaller ones. However, no matter our few attempts to speed up the action, it took us a bit of a long time. After a while, we decided to use large beads and redo it, but not because the small ones were difficult, but they did not look as we had  expected.

Duration: 1,5h

CAS Learning Outcomes: 1, 3, 4, 

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CAS ACTION 09.2020

In this month, me and my friends started the 30 days of Yoga challenge online since it would be dangerous to meet up with each other. The exercises were not hard. It was rather hard to decide the time of our meetings since all of us had different sheuduls. They were days when I was too busy or we had to do alone the Yoga. However, when I missed the Yoga, I always did two the next day after doing it with my friends. We all have mutally agreed that the main goal is to do all the 30 videos. All in all, I believe that it is a good initiative since we can all motivate each other with consideration of our health and the restriction connected to pandemics. 

Duration: about 600min

CAS Learning Outcomes:  2, 3, 4, 5, 7

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CAS SERVICE 6.09.20

In times with pandemic, me and my friends took part in the safe Great March for Climate. We found this initiative very exciting with good intent since it was not aggressive and the main purpose was rather to spread awareness calmless. Since my friend new the organizers, we applied to be in the wave that walked in the front. Our task was to wave our hands so that the material would move like a wave. It was hard and tiring, since the weather was also hard. We walked longer than we expected but we managed to keep wave our hands all the time since we wanted to commit to our task. There was a big group of police in one place, but nothing happened since all of us only walked. However, we were suprized by the way how some passersby congratulated us.

Duration: about 3h

CAS Learning Outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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CAS CREATIVITY 13.08.20

During the summer, I have been working on this painting on an off since I have been pretty busy with my summer job. Finally, I managed to finish it. Therefore, it took lots of time as well as patience. I painted new things gradually and to not repeat my earlier mistakes I did all the layers at the time and left them for long time to dry completely. Therefore, sometimes when I left it to dry, I just left it for another day. I am really happy about the ending outcome, especially how the shades have turned out. It has been one of my best paintings so far. 

Duration: about 4h in total

CAS Learning Outcomes: 1 

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CAS ACTION 17.07.20

Today, with my family we played badminton that we rarely use. I found it at home and initiated my parents to go out to nearby park and play together. It was a very valuable experience. Even though, my mom and sister were not so good in comparison to me and my dad, we had good time. At the beginning, I wasn’t that good, which drove me to keep playing more and more. However, after I switched with my mom with shuttlecock, I realized that the earlier one that we used was worse since it was old. I was very hooked because when I played with my dad we had a very tight game. However, I noticed that my dad most of the time was standing still. In contrast, I had to move a lot which was very tiring. I am pretty sure that my dad did it on purpose since he knows how competitive I am. Now, that I think back I could have not keep aiming straight at him. I guess that I was too focused on the fact to keep the ball in action and play cooperatively. 

Duration: 4h

CAS Learning Outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 

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CAS ACTION&SERVICE 22-30.08.20

On the last week of summer, me and my two friends went went to my friend's plot out of Warsaw. It was to keep safety as well as to be against mass tourism. We had a long conversation about the harms mass tourism brings and as a result decided to initiate a good way of spending holidays. Therefore,  we planned everything by ourselves and rode by small bus. Since there wasn’t a lot of supermarkets nearby, every time we had to borrow the bikes from close neighbors to ride to the store nearby. Lucky enough, I got a mountain bike. At first I was a bit worried, but it  wasn’t that hard to ride it. 

Action duration: about 6h

Service planning duration: about 1h

CAS Learning Outcomes: 2, 3, 4, 6

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CAS ACTION 27.06.20

I have been having big troubles with Week 5 Program. The runs started to get too exhausting for me and thus I have been redoing Week 4 program all over again. Today, I tried to start the Week 5 one, but scorching weather did not help me. For sure, I prefer to run in more humid weather. It was too hot and in the end I decided to finish my run with a stroll. As it has been very hard for me to jump to week 5 program, I have decided to stick only to the week 4 program which involves 3 and 4 min runs rather than do more intensive run that I donot enjoy.

Duration: 30 min

CAS Learning Outcomes: 1, 5

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CAS SERVICE 27.06.20

As the school year has been coming to the end, we have decided to bid farewell and end the project. The experience was very valuable to me, especially very eye-opening. It was very surprising to me that even though we had good intentions and we wanted to help during the quarantine, some publishers only allowed us to read the stories with a fee. Therefore, finding the the bedtime stories was hard due to copyright reasons, but luckily we managed to overcome it. The main reason that contributed to it is in my opinion our division of work and great leader. What’s more, I am very happy that our webpage reached more than 400 recipients! 

CAS Learning Outcomes: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7