CAS Takes the Stage 

by Holly Lewis, IB Coordinator, Robbinsdale Cooper High 

There weren’t any pork-chops-on-a-stick at this fair. International Baccalaureate students from around Minnesota came to the First Annual IB CAS (Creativity, Activity, and Service) Fair on March 9 (the second only in the U.S.). There they browsed among nearly 50 colorful and well-constructed exhibits displaying creative, active and social service projects assembled by their peers. The displays represented the students’ IB Diploma requirement of CAS activities. Projects ranged from initiating a Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) chapter to creating a peer tutoring organization; from befriending senior citizens to building houses for Katrina victims. On the edges, two fully-suited fencers sparred to demonstrate their activity enterprise, and a Korean drummer kept up a strong beat, displaying the creative activity she had explored. Also represented were IBMYP (Middle Years Program) and IBPYP (Primary Years Program) students with their own programs’ culminating assignments, the Personal Project and the Student Exhibition, respectively.

The event, held at Highland Park Senior High School, was the culmination of a year’s planning to bring IB students from around the state together to mutually inspire each other and informally chat about their common IB experience. Approximately 275 students came from St. Paul Highland Park and Central, St. Paul Highland Elementary (representing the PYP), South St. Paul, Grand Rapids, Champlin Park, Minneapolis Southwest, Minneapolis Henry, Minnetonka, and Robbinsdale Cooper (representing both the diploma program and the MYP). Seventy of the students were exhibitors and the other 200+ came to get ideas.

The day began for students with a daydreaming exercise about their ideal adult profession, service projects, and creative and athletic activities, all of which were woven together into a skit by students from Champlin Park and Henry at the end of the fair. An auditorium program featured Bob Poole, head of IB North America’s Vancouver office and recognition services, speaking about how the CAS requirement of IB helps to form lifelong habits of service and personal engagement. State Senator Dick Cohen, chairman of the Senate House Finance Education committee, and St. Paul school board member Tom Conlon, validated the IB experience and congratulated students on their many and varied displays. Macalester College junior, Victor Llanque-Zonta, speaking of his years in IB as a Bolivian in a Norwegian IB school and volunteering at an orphanage in Tibet, vividly demonstrated for the students the international aspects of IB. Cooper juniors Alex Zudova and Uyen Phan told the audience about the trials and triumphs of launching and maintaining an after-school peer tutoring program. Phan was applauded for designing the poster and brochure art for the fair. Outside the auditorium, St. Thomas and Hamline Universities, the University of Minnesota, Beloit and St. Olaf colleges eagerly manned booths to recruit these exceptional students.

The event was chaired by Charlotte Landreau, IB coordinator at Highland Park Senior High; Kari Christensen and Holly Lewis, Robbinsdale IB coordinators; and Diane Scioli, PYP coordinator. It was financed entirely by funds raised in offering IB Orientation Workshops over the last two years.