CAS Goals For DP2

Service:

Like last year, I am the leader for Housing and Habitat and going forward, our group aspires to create more opportunities for members of our service and the OSC community to offer infrastructural aid to people who need it, or projects that would benefit the school directly. Having planned and participated in the Home Run event last year we also have a better idea of how to efficiently set it up, and hopefully, this year will improve the event. By the end of this year, I want to have created a sustainable plan for our service through the establishment of relationships with people who can provide resources or people who we can help and an efficient way of generating and maintaining our group’s finances.

 

Action:

My main goal for this aspect of CAS is to participate in more athletic competitions and training sessions in order to improve my athletic and collaborative skills with a specific focus on SAISA volleyball and basketball. While the country’s situation somewhat inhibits travel, I still have the goal of landing an ariel in surfing before I graduate. In order to do so, I will petition to travel to the beaches more often and practice off-board exercises that would help me achieve the goal.

 

Creative:

During the last year, I have discovered a rekindled passion for cooking which I hope to develop for my goal, of creating a recipe book of maybe 20 with ingredients that can be easily sourced, mostly targeted toward college students. I will make it my own by adding a twist on recipes and adding my own pictures and steps.

Another creative goal is to learn how to play ukulele and bass guitar well enough to understand sheet music and play a couple of notes on each instrument effectively.

 

CAS Project:

This project is a mandatory part of the CAS program that enables students to pursue their own passions and projects. For my project I have a couple of ideas with one in place to start soon: a reading session with grade 2s which would not only educate but also establish bonds between grades and encourage more interactions between grades. A theoretical idea would be a trans-school volleyball tournament that features a round-robin competition style so that everyone could play everyone. This would be an event hosted at school and would be a collaboration between several students so we can provide snacks and fair teams. Alternatively, this could be an event with signups in school with the winner getting a portion of signup money and the rest going to fund a service group.

ESS Maldives Trip

Source: worldatlas.com/maps/maldives

Source: gisgeography.com/maldives-map/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the course of the Vesak holiday weekend, the Environmental Systems and Societies class went to the Maldives in order to learn about biodiversity, conservation and waste management. 

 

The trip as a whole was a learning experience in a lot of ways. Firstly, learning about the Maldives as a whole, how the country operates and functions. We learned about how religion can largely govern the country, transportation and urbanization. These things were not explicitly mentioned to us but were things we observed along the way. We also went to dedicated locations to learn about more niche things, such as the trash island Thilafushi to learn about trash management, or Villingilli to meet with Beybe and learn about coral restoration and the NGO Save the beach. 

 

 

Travel Day

The trip began at 1:15, on Friday 13 (a great day for a plane ride). It was pretty much a standard flight except we got there a bit early so we had to wait for the terminal to open. We arrived in Hulhule at 8:15 local time after a turbulent 1 hourish ride. From there, we just waited in the airport until a boat came to pick us up to bring us to our first location, Kaani Guesthouse, in Maafushi. We had some food, changed and took our first snorkel in the Maldives just off the coast (in the bikini-free area, which was less crowded and therefore a better spot for the coral restoration zones off the beach). There wasn’t that much coral or anything but we got to see how people use metal frames to attach and grow coral. In these areas the fish population was noticeably significantly more dense, because of the shelter that the frames and growing coral offered. 

Maafushi

Following that short swim, we had a proper lunch and waited for our rooms. At around 4 we met with the island council chief, Mr. Hasan Solah, to discuss some of the infrastructure on the island, focusing on the waste management, renewable energy and water filtration systems in place on the island. Maafushi was home to a large local population and was more of a local island than a resort island as most islands are. Furthermore, Maafushi houses a prison, and therefore generates a lot of waste. Because of this, the island was home to a smaller scale waste management program, which involved a large landfill with burning patches to get rid of combustible waste, which in 2018 processed 1,733 kg of waste a day. The island did have an incinerator but it was out of commission when we went so we didn’t get to see it in action.

 

We also visited the water filtration plant where Mr. Solah gave us a tour of the facilities and explained how they stored the water. I won’t discuss the water filtration Maafushi as much as our next destination at Embudu village had a much more in depth tour.

 

The final part of our tour that day was at the island generators. We were told that the island had a max capacity of  6.5 megawatts, but usually operated at a max load of 2.7 megawatts. After the tour we played volleyball with local kids on a wet carpeted court. We played for about 30-40 minutes and went back to the hotel to get cleaned up after. 

 

Our first dinner in the Maldives was great, I had firsts, seconds, thirds, and probably 4ths. Safe to say we ate well. 

Maafushi

Anyways the next morning there was terrible weather so our whole day’s agenda was pretty much thrown out the window. After waiting in our hotel for the ocean to calm down, we got to go on a guided snorkeling tour of the coral restoration site and the surrounding area. On this tour we saw a bunch of cool fish, the usual things like parrotfish, moorish idols, trumpetfish, surgeonfish, butterfly fish, triggerfish, sea cucumbers etc. In addition we saw a lionfish lurking in a coral cave, which was my first experience with the invasive species. Lionfish pose a problem to ocean ecosystems because in most places they don’t have a natural predator (and have venomous spines that deter attackers), and are highly aggressive, with stomachs capable of expanding up to 30x their normal volume, putting massive strain on ecosystems. 

We managed to leave the island at around 2, after lunch. The boat ride was less than 20 minutes. Our destination was Embudu village, a resort island. Upon arrival the weather was still pretty bad so we could go snorkeling, not yet anyways, so we just played volleyball in the rain. 

 

 

Embudu 

 The weather calmed down an hour later, so we settled into our rooms and went snorkeling. Unfortunately the ocean was milky from the waves bringing up sediment from the floor so we didn’t see any cool fish. After the brief snorkeling we jumped off a boat for a bit and ate dinner. 

The next morning we went for a snorkeling excursion after breakfast. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me because right off the bat we saw a massive moray eel (~2m), something that I’ve always wanted to see before. The snorkeling trip was a bit interrupted by some strong currents but that didn’t disturb the biodiversity around us. This was the first trip we had the opportunity to see blacktip sharks and starfish. I also followed a pair of large eagle rays for about 25 meters which was another fish I’d always wanted to see. The main attraction of the island however was the coral gardens that were located in a calm section off the shore. The garden was beautiful and had more variations of coral then Id ever seen before (see https://marinesavers.com/corals/). The coral gardens also housed a bunch of clownfish of many colors.

After the snorkel, we had a tour of the island, focused on how electricity is generated on the island which was with some generators and a solar panel grid located on top of buildings on the island (480 kilowatts total) and water filtration and waste management. Embudu incinerated all combustible waste and glass, piping the CO2 and other products of combustion into the air so it didn’t affect the island too much. They did not regularly use the plant if I remember right, mostly to minimize excess trash as they used the local waste management options; trash boats to Thilafushi and maybe Maafushi if I remember correctly. 

 

The biggest part of the tour was the water filtration system on the island. The island used a reverse osmosis system; basically a system that uses a semi-permeable filter to separate unwanted molecules and larger particles from drinking water. The system did not dilute all water as I previously thought, it left some water in greater concentration. The liquid, more concentrated leftovers were dumped into the ocean offshore (the concentrated liquid had no ecological impact as I was told, so it did not harm the environment). 

 

In addition to seeing the basic infrastructure of the island we got to see the clothing washing room, home to enough washing machines and dryers to make a laundromat jealous, and the bottling plant. At the bottling plant we were explained by the manager of the island that one of the islands main focuses was completely removing plastic bottles. This was an easily understood goal as on the island plastic bottles were all we could get for any drink, be it water, coke or apple juice. Obviously working in an industry so heavily dependent on the environment would mean that plastic bottles are a massive no-no. In fact, the entire Maldives aims to have completely outlawed single-use plastic by 2023. 

 

 

Male

A quick lunch later and we were on the way to Mahagiri Hotel in Male by speedboat. After getting checked in at 2:30, we were free to walk around the town or spend time working on schoolwork. I managed to finish my TOK exhibition during this time so it was academically good but hearing stories from my classmates that went walking made me a bit jealous. 

Our final day in the Maldives started with a car ride to the ferry station, so that we could get to Villingili and meet with Beybe from the NGO Save the Beach. Save the Beach is a prominent activist group in the Maldives focusing on coral restoration, cleaning up beaches, promoting eco-friendly lifestyles for locals and minimizing other ecological damage caused by infrastructure projects in the area (namely the big port built on Villingili). 

 

 

Villingilli

Beybe talked about the conservation efforts on Villingilli specifically because of the port built there 20 years ago. According to Beybe, coral in the area went down to 7% of what it used to be directly following the construction. Because of the various coral restoration projects on the island that figure was up to about 23%. He explained to us how they restored coral by relocating it from unsuitable habitats and connecting them to a series of frames so that they can grow outwards and create excellent habitats for the ocean life in the area. Another thing they did was set up a screen between the port and main coral restoration project so that silt and other debris kicked up by the construction was prevented from interfering with coral growth. The other initiative discussed was the reduction program that helped Villingilli locals become more aware of the consequences of pollution, specifically plastic or waste pollution, and what they can do to help the reef. This program was extremely successful as Beybe proved by telling us about the massive reduction in daily trash, going from a number in the high 20s to around 7 if I recall. This drastic change shows that the population of Villingilli had changed over time, and they wished to spread that change to those who visited the island. 

 

Villingilli was more similar to Maafushi than Embudu in the sense that it was a local island, one without too many resorts. Villingilli had a mosque, school, convenience stores and everything as we saw on our tour of the island however the island’s biggest asset was its magnificent coral which was impressive by Maldivian standards and therefore world class in every way. 

 

We went snorkeling nearby the coral restoration project allowing us to see the way that the coral spread and grew over time. He pointed out newer bunches and ones that had grown in the years of the project. The coral in this area was splendid, the visibility around 20 meters and the biodiversity second to none. Within minutes of snorkeling Eleez, Josh and I spotted a spotted moray eel that I reckoned to be a laced moray. Another interesting fish I saw was a neon yellow trumpetfish, several boxfish of moderate size, sea urchins (of the humongous size), toadfish and pretty much everything we saw before on other islands just with greater amounts. This was the best snorkeling we experienced on the trip. 

 

 

Thilafushi

From Villingilli we traveled to the trash island, Thilafushi, which served as a hub for waste management in the atoll as I understand it. Some project managers greeted us with cool hard hats and vests and explained the function of the island and the way that its methods are going to have massive change. Trash was now being sorted better, by a series of construction machines and a conveyor belt (which had an electromagnet to gather metallic waste and separate it from compostable waste.). In addition to this, we saw a really cool machine at work, which compressed and then wrapped the compostable waste into plastic covered, compact waste bales essentially. These were far more space efficient and by reducing open air in the trash pile the ongoing issue of a non-extinguishable fire on the island could be solved as the root of the problem was methane buildup underneath years of garbage, editing and staying alight under the pile surface. Compact, wrapped trash bales solved this problem. The island processed an undetermined amount of trash daily, information which I will add later. Future initiatives on the island will enable the island to process more garbage then is dropped off, effectively reducing the pile day by day. They also plan on getting more efficient incinerators which will use energy generated from combustion to power the incinerators, essentially making the incinerators self-sufficient and significantly more sustainable and efficient. 

Assortment of Thilafushi waste island pictures.  You can see us repping the awesome vests and helmets which had built-in eye protectors
Credit: Mr Lockwood

 

Bandos

From Thilafushi we went back to Male to collect our baggage for a 4 hour trip to a neighboring island Bandos for a late lunch and some time to recompose ourselves before the flight back home. For me and Nik, Bandos meant an opportunity to play volleyball with the workers there, many of whom knew Nik since his infancy. They knew me from a prior trip to the island. We played for an hour and a half (the sea was too rough to snorkel) while everyone else explored the island and swam. From there, all we did was clean up and get ready for the flight back. The flight itself felt much shorter, probably because there wasn’t turbulence, and just like that we were back home. 


The trip as a whole was a great learning experience for me. As a whole, I have a much greater understanding of coral restoration and waste management specifically, because of the extent that we learned about it. Underwater biodiversity was another key part of the trip obviously, and most of that learning was done by ourselves, since we didn’t get guides most of the time. The trip exemplified CAS learning outcomes like global engagement and considering ethical impacts because of the concepts and ideas that we learned as well as collaboration because we did everything together, forcing us to work in unison. Overall a great trip from both an academic and tourist perspective.

 

 

The Homerun Event

As a leader of the housing and habitat service group at OSC, the homerun event was the first time for our service to properly function, together and for DP 1s to lead the group to a successfull event. Ive already made some posts about the planning of the event so this will strictly be on the actual outcome of the event.

All things considered, this event was a success, it proved that despite an almost complete lack of experience in the event, we could still pull it off, and get enough money to fund our future projects. The day of the event, most of us woke up at around 5:30, to be at school at 6:30, which in itself is an accomplisment; getting 20 teenagers to get up for free is no easy work. Besides that, we already had everything organised thanks to the efforts of the DP1s in the combined group (Nik, Diyath, Liam, Arvin, Yangki, and myself) so logistically the only difficult thing was getting people to where they had to be.

 

Credit: Mr. Leblanc

 

After getting gathered, the first half of the group was herded into the van and dropped off at their designated spots. My role as the man in the van was getting people to their spots and telling them what to do as I had done the course with Mr Leblanc and Nik a couple days before in preparation. I also had the duty of making sure everyone was comfortable and more importantly safe, within close distance of other people and not in a heavily trafficked spot or somthing. After the van got back from picking up the rest of the people, we carried on the route, dropping everyone off before heading back, following the last person in the event and picking up/cleaning up the groups as we went. Luckily, we learned that only one person got lost which we took as a success.

Our learning outcomes that were achevied was first of all showing the initiation to actually plan a successful event. Another key learning outcome was collaboration. As I said, the event was a collaboration between Housing and Habitat and Care for Paws, and to highlight this we tried to pair people up with partners from the other service group, in order to establish new freindships and whatnot. The event as a whole was a demonstration of undertaking new challenges, and persevering in doing so. During the planning of the event we came across a bunch of little annoyances that reduced our productivity, such as limited working days as a group, problems with the route, planning for rain, manpower etc, but in the end, with only a small bit of improvisation, we pulled off a successful event and reached our goal, which will enable us to help a local school by furnishing and providing basic infrastructure in the near future.

 

 

 

Basketball with the Homies

Last Saturday (16/4/21) a group of 15 of my freinds and fellow basketball players met up at CLC basketball hub for 2 hours of intense 5v5 basketball games. For me it was an oppurtunity to play with basketball players that werent from our school as well as Henry, who left last year. It also proved to be a great learning experience for playing as a team because for the most part, we play basektball on a single half, usually 3 on 3s or 4 on 4s so playing a full on game was a great way to be reminded of how basketball is proffessionally played. The learning outcomes are strength and skill and collaboration, as we improved upon both our teamwork and individual prowess, challenge and skills, because a lot of people there weren’t accostomed to playing a proper game, and perseverance; in the form of dealing with the cramps and tiredness that accompany a nonstop-2 hour extremely physical game. All things considered, the experience was a good one, for cas and just in general.

Images courtesy of Diyath Kularatne DP1

Planning for the Home Run

For the last 3 weeks our service group, housing and habitat, have been hard at work planning for the upcoming homerun fundraiser which is happening for the first time in 2 years. To plan for the event we had to determine our goals, so that we could figure out how much money we needed to raise. Next, we considered the old route and how we could improve it based off the feedback we received. The new route was then decided after about 2 service meetings.

 

Designed by Arvin Fonseka DP 1 on Canva

 

After deciding the route we allocated roles as well as discussing what the event would look like for us, what we would need to bring, when we would need to wake up, and what each person would be doing before, during and after the event. In the coming weeks, our service group will involve Care for Paws and begin to implement our ideas.

Highlands Trip (Days 3-5)

Our view from the hotel balcony in the morning

Day 3:

Needless to say we had an excellent sleep that night, the freezing wind and cool temperatures saw to that. This day was all about Horton Plains.

At around 8:00 that morning we headed off to the famous park with the goal of climbing the 2nd highest peak in Sri Lanka, which we accomplished just for lunch. Our journey was pretty nice, hiking through the plains before reaching a cloud forest. Hiking in the cloud forest was a bit difficult, absolutely enraging a couple people with its steep overgrown paths and low hanging bushes however we saw a a lot of cool biodiversity unique to the high altitude.

Some of the cool species that we saw:

We also saw a little froggo all the way at the top of the peak but unfortunately I couldn’t get a picture of it.

Of course the biodiversity wasn’t the only thing we came for, the view were absolutely amazing. Fortunately I managed to get some nice, grainy pictures of it.

Day 4: we made the journey to Nuwara-Eliya today, more importantly to Jagro for some tasty fresh strawberries and cheesecake. After our shortish break we made our way to St Andrews for the final night and frog watching. There we had a nice lunch followed by a trip to the Victoria Park to see some of the endemic birds its known for, as well as (more importantly) the children’s playground with spinny toy things. From there, we went cargills to wait in line for some Kome crackers.

The frog walk was very eventful, we saw a critically endangered point endemic frog right off the bat, followed by some hourglass frogs shown below.

During the frog walk we also saw a big Huntsman, a Toad, two other kinds of frogs (whose names have left my mind) and a Rhino Horned lizard.

By the end of the walk we were absolutely freezing our butts off as it was 16 degrees. Needless to say we sprinted back to the hotel and plunged into the shower, only to discover that there was no hot water, only absolutely freezing cold glacier water which wasn’t nice or expected at all. Following the freezing shower, I ran down to the hot fire in the lobby to warm up. Dinner was pretty nice but what was better was the sleep, next to the heater, in a nice bed. That really capped off the trip. From there, we just hurried back to Colombo the next morning and got there before 5.

The last couple days were really outstanding, visiting the renowned Horton Plains, staying at St Andrews, visiting Victoria Park, the whole mix was just a really phenomenal end to the WWW experience. However it didn’t come without its challenges, the biggest of which was perseverance, either through the grueling Horton Plains trek, the icy temperatures the last night, and long, arduous car rides just to meet that end goal, a world class view, critically endangered frogs, unique ecosystems and biodiversity, it was all worth it-perhaps the greatest lesson we learned during the trip, how valuable nature is and the virtue of patience. Something that translates nicely into the DP.

The trip was filled with themes like comradery (watching people fall and not laughing too hard), obviously perseverance, learning new skills, open-mindedness etc. The trip also gave us unique insight to the highly localized ecosystems and biodiversity, learning about things like cloud forests and human impact on amphibians which are invaluable to an ESS student such as myself. But yeah, overall a great trip and learning experience. Recommend 10/10 even if your not the biggest fan of hiking because the view is more than worth it.

 

 

Highlands Trip (Day 1-2)

 

Day 1: 

The trip began with the slamming of a van door and a decent sleep through traffic until our 1/4ish of our trip, marked by a stop at a road-side restaurant for some brunch. Up till that point it was all just highways and the usual highway scenery. It continued like that for a fair bit until we got to the hills. For some of us that marked the point where the nice straight road turned into a beautiful scenic route, straight out of national geographic. For others of us it marked our descent into anarchy, and motionsickness. Luckily I managed to sleep through most of it. By 12:30 we had reached the point of liftoff to the rest of our trip. This was where we had lunch and then went into our first hike through the patty fields.

Credit Pep

 

 

After about 3 hours and only one leech attack (to me, others were not so fortunate) we arrived at Kinchingune, our camp for the night. After showering up, eating some dinner and a can of chile-lime pringles, it was time for sleep. Lucky for us, our beds had some nice rods through them which ensured peaceful, non troubling sleep.

 

Our campsite

 

Day 2:

We woke up with cramped backs and rumbling stomachs. Brekfast was some delicious porrige and bread (for me so I wouldn’t puke it up on the chaotic 40 minute drive to the hike site). The objective of this hike was to see two of the highest waterfalls in Sri Lanka, and hopefully swim in the second one. The first waterfall was pretty underwhelming as waterfalls go but the cool water vapor being shot out was more than worth it. Unfortunately we observed our first global issue of the trip here; pollution.

The first waterfall

There was plastic bags, bottles cans etc. all spilling into the waterfall basin causing a really disturbing image. Luckily, the rest of the hike had no such pollution. At first we went through an evergreen pine forest littered with pinecones, pine needles and slippery rocks. We hiked along that trail for about 20 minutes before we saw a clearing up ahead, looking out on a magnificent view.

 

The view

A giant wasp nest we saw

A smiling Liam

 

The rest of the hike was through a large grassy plain on a steep hill until we got to the forested creek area which led up to the waterfall. We parcoured across the stream to a large rock where we had some snacks, namely Hawaian Cookies. After the quick break we changed and jumped into the water. The water was so incredibly cold that it warmed you up, it hurt like getting punched in the gut. Once we got used to it it was pretty nice though. The water basin was about 10 feet deep and smooth edged. Some vines hung down into the water on the left side. We paused for a group picture, changed and then headed back to the vans.

Mapped 2nd Day Hike Credit: Ms. Kamila

Credit: Pep

 

From the hiking launch point the car trip to our hotel was about an hour.

 

 

 

 

After eating lunch we drove to lipton seat. There we climbed the hill, saw old lipton and his humongous hands and then had some really delicious samosas, roti and this dahl peanut ball and treacle thingie. Back at the hotel we were assigned to rooms showered up, played on the playground for a bit as other people showered. Then we ate dinner, wrote refliections and headed off to sleep.

 

Learning objectives of the first 2 days:

The most obvious outcome achieved was perseverance, as we had to endure (persevere if you will) through long car rides on less than nice roads, which is a struggle for me. This taught us patience as we would always be driving to see something new and mostly worth the drive. We also persevered through, leech infested patty fields, long and tiresome hikes and beds that we weren’t comfortable in. Ultimately, these first couple days really were about teaching us the value of nature, going out of our city lives to see the countryside.

We also had to be openminded and optimistic, elsewise the horrible car journeys would have been unbearable, pessimism leading us to lose sight of what the trip was about (exploring the country). We also had to have open palates as the food we ate was new. This wasn’t so much a struggle as it was delicious but still trying a new food can be a challenge for some people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Housing and Habitat on Thursdays

The last two weeks our service group, Housing and Habitat, have been developing sustainable ideas for the future of the group. Coming out of Covid, many of the collaborations and activities previously done in HH have come under scrutiny, for example the Home Run. Because of this, as well as realizing that somewhere along the path, the group has strayed away from the hands on experience HH is supposed to be, we have spent our service periods firstly introducing new members and secondly coming up with ideas for the future, emphasising the sustainable side of things so that we can further benefit a group of people.

New members coming into our group also gave us the opportunity for new skillsets, in 3d modeling, planning etc. Our group has a strong new core which will enable us to help more people, better.

Some ideas we came up with are collaborating with NGOs, other services, setting up something like a service day where the OSC community can help out as well as building some kind of entertainment system for less fortunate kids, something like a foosball table. Any ideas that you may have feel free to email me at [email protected] or just comment below.

Une Galette de pêche

In french class we are encouraged to make cas posts integrating french and french culture with CAS. For this post I chose to make a galette I found, based off an old music video/childrens book I remembered from my early french years (called roule galette).

 

Un peu moche à la fin mais ils ont eu un goût délicieux.

En classe, lors d’une discussion sur le CAS, nous avons été invités à créer une sorte d’objectif créatif lié au français pour l’année suivante. Ayant vécu dans le pays francophone du Sénégal, j’ai immédiatement pensé à faire un Yassa Poulet ou une Thieboudienne, mais plus tard dans le mois, après que ma mère m’ait dit d’essayer d’utiliser un sac de pêches lyophilisées, j’ai pensé à faire une galette, quelque chose que je connaissais grâce à la chanson et au livre Roule Galette de Natha Caputo. En utilisant la liste des ressources françaises qui nous a été donnée en classe, j’ai trouvé une recette à suivre (https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/peach-plum-galette) et j’ai terminé le tout en moins d’une heure. Cette production créative m’a permis de réaliser que l’intégration du français dans ma vie de tous les jours n’est pas aussi difficile que je le pensais et que j’ai l’intention d’aller de l’avant de façon plus régulière.

 

Learning outcomes: develop my understanding of french culture and knowledge through practical means; creating a product based off instructions in french. This enabled greater understanding of informal french language that was used in the recipe.