IB Diploma at Naturesbase Education in West Wales

IB Diploma

IB Diploma

Creativity, Action and Service (CAS) – Environmental Challenge

This course provides students with the opportunity to build towards the CAS element of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. With the sustainable infrastructure at Naturesbase and the diverse local environs a range of challenging and enjoyable activities are available to support students in developing skills and contacts needed to initiate projects on their own.

Aims of the course are to enable students to:

Plan, review, reflect and report on personal and interpersonal development
Undertake personal and group challenges in a variety of environments.
Participate in creative thinking and active task
Develop skills needed to contribute to voluntary service and projects
Engaging in experiential learning through purposeful activities with consequences

Half day options

Leadership, Communication, Team work

This module will enable students to work within a team, develop communication and leadership skill whilst having to think outside the box, developing strategies for overcoming a variety of mental and physical challenges. They will develop skills in setting personal goals, self-review and reflection techniques providing opportunities for students develop their knowledge and understanding of the experiential learning cycle.

Commitment, Compassion and Service:

During this session student will complete activities that will develop their skills needed to organise independent voluntary projects.

Naturesbase 9 acre site has numerous opportunities for small focussed conservation projects. Enhancing biodiversity through different types of ecosystem management has been carried for several years at Naturesbase with student planning and carrying out a variety of projects focussed on

biodiversity management and conservation skills in the woodland / pond / stream and meadows. Installing bird boxes, surveying using pit fall traps and mammal traps, and creating new habitats for small mammals and birds through building brash piles, laying hedges and pond clearance.

Review

Linked closely to the Theory of Knowledge (ToK) element, this session will focus on reflection and development of self awareness. It will provide students with the opportunity to synthesize their experiences and reflections from the course into a form that will enable them to more forward into the future. They will have the opportunity to:

• Revisit the experiential learning cycle

• Consider the collaboration and involvement from the group in the weeks activities

• Discuss personal strengths and areas for improvement and growth

• Reflect and revisit aspects of the course and how this may inform their future actions and choices

Full Day Options

Mini Expedition

During this day module, students will take part in and lead the teifi pools mini expedition which is an intellectual emotional and social challenge. Students will have the opportunity to:

• Develop their sense of empathy and compassion for each other

• Develop a sense of place for the environment

• Have the opportunity to explore, create and reflect on a piece of individual or group art work ‘

• Consider their personal response to risk and unfamiliar situations

• Develop their independence and courage

• Evaluate and reflect on their personal and group performance

Or Enquiry Teifi pools, cardigan bay, climate change and sea level rise – aberaeron oganic v conventional farming

Enquiry and Skill Development

During this day, students will investigate how humans interact with their environment. The Cambrian mountains is a unique landscape with historical and contempory significance: Students will have the opportunity to undertake a range of activities to investigate this landscape, which can be based on the academic areas that students have chosen. Students will have the opportunity to:

• Plan and carry out investigative fieldwork and research tasks

Explore the potential management strategies on offer from a sustainable futures perspective based on environment, economy and the community

Construct questionnaires for interviews with stake holders

• Examine and justify their perceptions and interpretations of the landscape and futures strategies for the environment

• Apply the ideas of the Theory of Knowledge, to reflect on the process of learning

Or Conservation project. pond clearance river clearance and woodland management. Look at biodiversity first

Sustainable cities

During this day the students will visit Europes leading Centre for Alternative Technology

Through formal workshops and tour of the extensive site the visit will provide opportunities to:

• Challenge the way they think about the world and their lives

• Consider the best way to use the available resources so that everyone can live happily now and in the future

• Consider how ecological systems and limits can help us understand sustainability

to develop and present proposals for ‘sustainable cities of the future’

Evening Activities

1. Global Citizernship. During this evening activity students will explore What is sustainability? Relate global issues to local situations, undertake a tour of Naturesbase’s sustainable infrastructure and through several activities leading considering what makes them happy and what we need to make us happy

2. Sustainable futures. During the evening students will have the opportunity to explore to an element of sustainability. Food miles, resource miles, fare trade and the fashion industry often challenging the way they think about the world and their lives, before presenting their finding to the group

They will have an opportunity to develop proposals for sustainable futures of either energy, waste, transport, food,, water or buildings.

3. Cook out

During this session students will, in groups, prepare a course of the evening meal over a fire They will follow instructions, consider aspect of risk and safety, develop leadership and groups skills needed to organise, prepare, cook and serve either starter, main or desert.