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Finishing CAS

CAS has been one of my favorite subjects, it really taught me how to develop as a person and become who I am. Sadly I couldn't spend that much time in my CAS projects the past months as I would like too, mainly because of the projects going on and as exams dates are getting closer. My CAS experience has been life-changing, I was able to develop as a caring person, a think and inquired that looked beyond what we are taught in school to learn about agriculture and its importance in our daily life. Agriculture has opened my mind, I was able to appreciate more the food we have, the challenges the farmers go through and really live through those challenges as a farmer my self. In my final reflection, I will talk more deeply how this CAS project has developed every single Ib profile within me and made me who I am today. 

I am very grateful for having such an amazing opportunity, the garden really taught how to value to work of others, it connected me to nature and made me appreciated the basis of agriculture and its importance in this world. I also was able to experience the life of a farmer and to learn the struggles and consequences of growing organically or with pesticides. 

Overall it was an awesome experience that has changed my point of view, developed my understandings and made me a better person. 

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Planning my last activity

In order to complete all the CAS expectations, I had to plan an activity to finish up with CAS and somehow help my school with the high stress and preoccupations as the Ib exams are getting closer and graduation is around the corner. My activity was to organize with two advisories including mine, to make teacher thank you cards, especially the IB teachers that have been working extra hard to make the best learning experiences we as students can have. So as my activity, I brought in some construction paper, markers, and glitter and made students thank the teachers of their preference with the cards. The main objective of my activity was to thank teachers, to recognize their hard work on these hard weeks and also make students value their work and time they have to spend in planning and making every class the best one it can be. 

The main purpose of my activity was to give back to my teacher positive vibes in order for them to remember this stance in the school and reflect how important they are in our community and their impact in the student they make on the daily basis. I was able to collect more than 10 cards for some individual teachers, we focused mainly on IB teacher which are the ones that have been working the hardest and need more emotional support.

Some challenges of my activity were the organization between two groups of advisories and making sure everyone had the materials to create the cards. 

Overall the activity was wonderful, we had a great time and were able to make a significant change in the lives of those stressed teachers with just a few minutes and some loving cards, that's what it's all about. 

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December Break

My garden is finally done everything to run by itself. I have planted new plants before the break and have left everything in order to come back and grow new vegetables. I am very happy with my work this trimester and the progress in the actual beds and structures in the garden. Now that I am done with that, I will give some final decorations and it will be ready to run by its left next year. Now that the whole water system works to the perfection and the beds are set up, anything can be planted and grown in the garden. I will need to add more soil to the beds and add some shelves for storage. I will need to add some new tools for anyone to grow and use.   This trimester has been very busy, I really didn't focus on growing plants, I decided to increase the efficiency fo the garden by adding more structure and making sure everything is ready for use. I have added an extra bed and modified the water system to every bed. Now that everything is ready, anyone can come in and plant/grow whatever they want.

The idea of anyone coming by and planting in the garden goes back to my whole experience in the garden the past years, how it helped me improve as a person and the whole learning process of gardening and agriculture you can learn with just a garden. I want to provide the same experience to the rest of the community so everyone can learn to value the effort of getting food to the table, and the whole challenge to grow a crop properly. Hand on experience in a garden really teaches you the importance of plant and makes you love your work and the plants. Especially the ones you grow and water every day. A garden is a way to relieve stress and make a connection with mother nature, something I experience and wanted everyone to experience the next year. 

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Water system

Today is the day. I have been talking to the workers the past days and the water system will be up this afternoon. This is a big advancement because it means I can plant more plants and grow more vegetables. I really want to finish this year strong so making sure the garden has everything it needs to be able to grow stuff with ou any problem is the biggest concern for me. Now with the water system, the idea is to fill in the beds with new seeds and expect growth the exponentially. Now with the beds ready, I have to create an activity to involve the community. The activity that I am thinking about involves a lower class like the first/second graders to help me decorate and paint some bottles to use as containers for the plants. The idea is to have the kids decorate and personalize each bottle and plant a seed and hang the bottles inside the garden for them to watch them grow.  

Things to do-

Email/talk to a second-grade teacher to plan out the activity

Find enough bottles for each student.

cut and prepare the bottles. 

Find an effective and easy way to hang the bottles. 

Prepare the mixture to put int he bottles

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My Balamce

As school gets harder, I have to find new ways to keep my CAS proyect alived, do home work and have a active healthy life. I have been working on my garden every morning for 20 - 30 minutes, intensively working in pruning and moving the tomatoes. As the trimester started I wasn't really staying after school much, because it was starting to become self efficient. Now I have realised how much work there is still left in the garden, with already many months

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Commitment

Everyone says motivation is key, but you really dont understand its power until you have to seek for it. My CAS project is entering a new phase and I have to get ready to manage it well in order to become successful. Currently I am trying to save the tomato plants, they have been growing amazingly but the webbing around the leaves has gotten worst suffocating the plant and killing many leaves.  I have

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CAS almost OVER!🔥 🎉🤩

Finally, the trimester is ending, the tears are drying, the drama is over and stress is cooling down, but sadly exams are closer. This is what the start of December looks like, a month that seems to only be focused on Christmas. As an IB student, Christmas isn't as big of a deal as the Math and Business IA, the extended essay final draft, the Biology and TOK final draft and to add the cherry to our pile of work, the exams. But one thing is for sure, that CAS is almost over, that our projects are reaching towards an end and our hard work has really paid off.

I am super happy to announce that my garden has been successful that it really helped me developed as a student and now I am sharing my experiences with other classes. I am presenting about my CAS experience again this week, my presentation was amazing in CAS NIGHT so teachers wanted me to present to other classes in their Science class.

I am really motivated to present to other classes to really teach them about CAS and what is all about. I will also talk a little about things I learned during this process related to the plant's reproductive system and challenges. I really want people to understand the importance of growing plants, and what gardening is all about. I will present my CAS experience to the 6th graders so as they roll into CAS they will have an Idea on how to give back to the community.

In this part fo CAS, I am trying to motivate people to use my garden so it can become a space in our community.

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CAS Night!

CAS Night is an event that is well anticipated by all parents in the community as well as teacher, staff, and students. Cas night allows students to present about their projects and how they are giving back to the community by Action and Service. I originally had set my mind to the idea that I am going to come in, have my notes and use them in my presentation but as we can guess I didn't end up using them. I had been practicing and had a solid presentation which was a huge benefit for me, it boosted my confidence and provided me with the extra push I needed.

My presentation had minimal information on the slides that way I could engage myself with the audience and made sure to capture their attention at the same time not overload them with information. For me, this was successful because I was able to connect with them and make them enjoy my presentation and project through my personal stories and experiences (Mainly failure). This was a great addition to my project because it showed the journey of my project with all of its up and downs demonstrating that I have overcome challenges and worked extremely hard to have results and positive outcomes. By engaging my audience, I was able to get them to enjoy my project and understand why there is a garden at the first place in our campus. Demonstrating the course of my project, the growth and development I faced was also very helpful because it showed the audience that this project had improved our community as well as me as a person in terms of motivation, patience, knowledge and mental strength.

Overall this experience of CAS Night was an incredibly memorable moment because it taught me how my hard work could pay off and motivate others. Seeing younger generations and future IB classes come to this event that is so passionate and inspired truly motivated me and taught me a memorable lesson. It showed me that my work does matter to our community and that my failures were viewed and growth by giving me room for improvement. I am very happy with my presentation, and hopefully, I was able to pass on my experience with others to realize the importance of gardening, agriculture, and the food on our tables. 

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Miss Amy Es Muy Necia.

It's about time to involve the community with my garden, Miss Amy gave me lots of new ideas and activities to perform the following week. First of all my main goals is to fill in the bed, finish planting and building the water system by next Wednesday. I haven't been in the garden much because I been practicing with the team twice a week and don't have much time. From now on I will start working weekly after school in order to accomplish my goals. 

Another great idea from the one and only Miss Amy J is to talk to the second graders about my project and how they could help, because they are in charge of recycling I will propose a new way they can recycle/reuse the empty plastic bottles they collect. The idea is to make these bottle into small pots for plants and hang them inside my garden. This will recycle old plastic bottles, allow second graders plant their own plants and watch them grow. This will be a great exercise to join the community together, especially the Arenal kids to learn a little about IB and what CAS is all about. They get to even learn about my project and maybe someday have a project similar to mine or take over the gardening in our school. Because it's not only about planting actual plants, it's encouraging and teaching the second graders about my projects, maybe then they could be the real small seeds that can turn my garden into something bigger and more powerful in the future.  

In order to do this, I have to talk to the second-grade teacher, make Sure I have seeds and receive their plastics bottles so I can cut them open and give them back for them to fill in with dirt and plant for themselves during their class. It would be awesome to take one CAS class next week to gather up together and maybe even have them decorate/paint each plastic bottles so they know which one it's theirs when they are hanging up. The idea is to teach, learn and have fun as we plant and get dirty.

As you see there is some planning to do, but now with an amazing idea, I can work with it to make sure to give back my experience/project with the community. 

Thank You, Amy. 

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Activity

During this and last week I have involved myself with many sports and activities in our community. I have mainly been practicing and playing with our school soccer team in order to represent La Paz in our community. Practice has been great, it's only around 3 hours a week. This week we had already 2 soccer games, one against Cria and the other against The Catholic Huacas school. The games were great and super challenging, sadly we lost both by a few goals. But we totally grew as a team and played as a whole making those games very competitive and fun.

I have noticed that our team needs more Practice, we have great players but we are missing key organization lessons and formations in order to play more effectively. Overall the more Practice the better, something that has been seen from last year to this year and hopefully next year and so on. This totally could relate back to my garden, were as the more time and effort I put the better the results. But sometimes things don't go the way you want.

We have been going to practice the past trimester and most of the days we are just playing some soocer games between us and not really getting into formations and techniques to play more effectively. This led us not really understanding how to move as a team during the actual games and not defending effectively and losing.

It's the same in my garden, I have been trying to plant and install and fix many things but I am not using my time wisely leading to dead plants and not the water system yet installed. This is mainly because I have been trying to do many things at the same time and with so much work on top of that everything fails. But don't worry I am used to failure, it just helps me grow and that's what I really love about CAS. CAS spent provide grades or marks it just helps you grow, and they you only to fully grow is to fail. CAS protects could be huge or tiny but the only way to measure their importance of they lead to growth, to personal growth . That's why I love my proyect, because it's full of failures .

Here is a picture of our soccer game in Huacas, final 5-3.

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Just Keep Working.🥕🥒

This journal entry should be dedicated to communication, but since I work alone my communication skills aren't currently improving. But one of the thing I have to work on is to get the new water system, I have told the Antonio and Alfonso so we can work on it but they are always busy. I dont blame them, they are busy men and I just have to get things down so they know what to exactly do and help me. I havent been asking them that many favors because they are currently building a new garden next to mine, but now as they finish they might have more time.

On the other side I have allowed some 9 graders to place their plants inside my garden, aslong as they dont touch my plants they can stay there. I also let them borrow some of my mixture in order to fill in their pots.

This week I also planted lots of carrot seeds, they haven't germinated yet but I have hope that in the next few days I will start seeing some small plants. I also gave a few cucumbers to the teachers and the lunch ladies in order to start giving back to the community. The cucumbers were used in the sauce they added to the lunch the next two days, something I am happy about. Some cucumber plants died, but I was able to save some with the new organic pesticide I decide to use against the huge pests we have. I have also let one of my classmates use one of my beds to run his biology IA, we can see how my gardens purpose hasn't just been producing vegetables and fruits but it has also been providing a space for people to grow and learn by providing the materials.

This journal entry isn't about communication, its about reflection, how big the purpose of the garden can be and valuable is to have a space to work, grow and learn. I will keep working to get more cucumbers and carrots but for now I have to get the water system running as soon as possible.

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Running for Liberty☮

The Activity section of CAS has become an important area of improvement this past year, it needs more explanations and recordings of my active life. Although I do lots of activities in my free time, I always try to have a good balance between school and sports, but I often never write about them. In this month of freedom and independence in Costa Rica I took an extra step and contributed to my core values, to support and celebrate our freedom and appreciate the liberty we enjoy today. In 1964 (54 years ago) a liberty torch passed on along Central America, starting with Guatemala and ending here in Costa Rica. We now keep running and pass along the flame of the liberty torch to remember the people who once in horses announced our independence. The flame carried represented our energy, the course of independence and our hope of a better nation.

So my main Activity performance this past week was running the torch with most of my classmates and members of the school and community our section between Huacas and our school, a total of 8 km. Running 8 km was a personal challenge, mainly because I do not run long distances very often, I play soccer which has more of a sprinting and short distance running. The hardest challenge other than the distance was the time that we ran, 1 am, having to run for about 1 hour and a half. Being awake for 21 hours with only having 2 hours and a half of sleep because we had school the next day was super challenging, specially being able to pay attention in class and being productive. 

The running wasn't easy, everyone started kinda fast and after only 2 km many couldn't keep running and things got hard. There was this section in the run between beach side clinic and Cria were it didn't seem like we were moving, distances look longer than expect and fewer people were left running. As a tradition we passed the lighten torch along the runners, the runner who had the torch lead the way, I was able to carry the torch 4 to 5 times. Running with the torch was so much harder, it was a little heavy and the fire really felt in your face if you didn't hold it at a distance. This made me realize hos much harder is the role of a leader, how challenging its to lead the way, to light every ones path and to how easily things can burn if we don’t move at the same pace. This made me realize how risky I have taken over my CAS project and that sometimes running alone gets hard, but as long has your torch is at a good distance from your head, you will see the path and reach your destiny.

Here are some pictures of the run:

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First Cucumbers 🥒🥒🍽

Work has paid off. 

That sentence right there has lots of power, it holds with itself something that CAS teaches you to value. As I start my senior year I worry about time, time I have to split between homework, assignments, study and CAS, but I have noticed that small garden out there really motivates me to always find time. That garden has really changed my life, and even when things get tricky, when I run out of time and have a pile of homework to do, the garden makes me forget, forget everything. CAS has really taught me about perseverance and even if I struggled like many any other CAS students, I have found my motive, found that gardening really motivates me to always keep going and never giving up. 

I always thought that the farmer was the one controlling the growth in a garden, but actually the farmer is the one growing as the plants simulate its effort and grow along him.

You might ask yourself why I am so happy, or why I reflected about my connection to my garden, well after a complete year I was able to bring food to the table. I never successfully grew a big source of food, not the size of a cucumber, but today I found one of my cucumbers ready to be eaten. This shows how much effort I have put in the garden and just like it gave me today a nice cucumber I expect it to keep growing and provide many other vegetables. There is still too much to work, including pests and organization but at least I got one big cucumber, and I believe that is a nice way to star the year. 

On the other side, here are my plans for this week:

I have to talk to Alfonso and Antonio about modifying the water system, I really need to get this going because it takes time to plan how to successfully move the pipes around. I also have to see how many tubes they can provided so I can buy the rest parts for the project. 

The beds are ready to go, once the water system is running I can plant on the third bed, the second bed however has already seeds and I will start watering it so once the system is running we already have grown plants. 

Now that I have my first cucumber, and I can a few more growing I have to start questioning how many I need for donations and how often I will have the products. This cucumber took a while to fully grow meaning that I will have to work on the cucumbers plants health to bring more flowers in to pollinate and grown more cucumbers at the same time. The first cucumber however I decided to split it between that people that have been helping out, including Mr. Sean, Alfonso, Antonio and Miss Amy. I really look forward to plant more things so production rate go up and I can have smaller and quicker plants to harvest like carrots and basil. I hope I can contribute to the cafeteria by donating once a while some vegetables and fruits for their salads, it would be an amazing idea because I would be helping the school by reducing costs and also feeding many people in my own community.

Lastly I want to talk about the future of the garden, it really hurts to say I need to pass the project on. I have built this garden and I feel we have been trough so much that I will take this experience everywhere I go, because it's so important to always try new things, to come outside the normal school box and learn things that make you unique and important in this ordinary world. The garden has been a school relief and has really influenced the way I see motivation and farming now days and how hard people work in poor conditions fields to provide you food.

 Here are some pictures of my cucumbers:

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Vacation- Action

During break I decided to keep active and do what I love the most, sports. I have been playing twice a week soccer in a small field in Tamarindo, also I have devided to enter with my team to a tournament in Santa Rosa to get in the competition experience (Something I never liked). Other than soccer I surfed everytime there was waves in town, surfing didnt happen very often because of the swells but once you find a perfect day its life changing. Sports have always been a big part of my life, I always had a big talent in addapting quickly to any sport and actually being good at performing it. Since my childhood we always liked to try new sports and new adventures, just like surfing and soccer that before when we were into skating they were just an idea, and once we decided to try them they became part of life. That's one of my childhood lessons I always take with me, the fact that trying something new isn't always bad, it's actually innovative and expands your thinking and view on this world. I connect directly to my CAS experience, how once things dont work you can decide to keep going and build a new path or give up, how you have always many options to take just like after the death of my tomatoes and my bed breaking in half. That's why my garden still is up and running, that's why sometimes you cant always rely on skating and sometimes new things like soccer and surfing could become part of your life. As I grow as a farmer I will always try to keep motivated and finding new path because you will never know when we run out of waves.

Here is a picture of before our first game in the soccer tournament.

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Vacation Work - Service

Since my Garden isn't providing a strong service yet, I decided to volunteer over break to really give back to my community. A few weeks ago a famous restaurant/bar called Rumors burned down in my community, I know the owners because they are Argentinians and with the help of other people we decided to volunteer and help them out by cleaning inside. Volunteering is a very strong service and as CAS student most of my volunteering experience come from beach cleanups but this one was unique and slightly different. 

I felt that my service made a stronger impact, mainly because the before and after change was impressive and very positive. Also helping people out when they are in need really feels great and after such a catastrophic event, being there to help is really valuable. 

We had to clean the smoke and ashes from the burned bricks on the wall, also clean the floor and overall trying to make clean/throwaway anything burned. 

Here is a picture inside the place, somehow cant upload a video. 

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Vacation Work -  Creative

My creative CAS work always comes from my garden, everything from creative solutions to results need to be apply to successfully grow plants. Over break I visited the garden to clean and control growth, the new cucumber plants have been growing amazingly, they are a few meters tall and look very healthy. I have been in contact with the workers because they have been turning on the water over break for me, something that I am very thankful of. Over break I changed some broken strings that were holding the cucumbers vertically, also fixed some water tubes. I also grew buckwheat along the cucumber line, they can also be harvest but I have kept them to protect the crop from harmful bugs and attract some bees or anything to carry pollen around. 

Now that school is starting again I have to recreate  and modify the water system to new beds, this is the number one task on my list because its the only way to get the two other beds working. I have filled one bed already, I just need to fill the other and buy more water pipes for the new extension. Once that is done I can plant more new things, I have bought many seeds over break because I been thinking in planting carrots or a smaller crop that is easier to harvest and faster to grow. I bought carrot and coriander seeds to the beds and will plant them once the new pipes are added. 

Here is a list of the following things I need to do in the next few weeks hopefully:

- Talk to Antonio and Alfonso to see how many pipes they have and how many I need to buy

- Install the pipes over the two new beds and the new water timer

-  Fill in the last bed and plant Carrot in one bed and Coriander in the other.

- Add some decorations/furniture in the garden, there is now more space to add some shelf and buy more tools.

- Over one of the Beds along the fence I could add some plastic bottles growing small crops inside, with the idea of reusing bottles and using that space. 

Those are my ideas for now, the cucumbers are also very mature and I will need to see what I should with the cucumbers once harvest. 

Here are some pics of the cucumbers and the garden. 

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End of the year.

Currently I been working in cleaning and getting the place ready, I have installed the two new beds and filled one up with dirt. The broken bed is now gone and the garden looks much better, I still new to find a way of getting some white rocks for the ground to make things look pretty. Next week is the big week, I have to modify the water system and get things running before break.  Throughout this year I have learned a lot of things, the garden has been a big part, It had motivated me in tough times. building a garden hasn't been easy, it looks easy but its not, it requires lots of perseverance and effort. My first involvement with the garden was to build a bed so I could plant something and get something growing. Now two trimesters and a half later I have gone trough 3 different crops, tomatoes that reached 2 meters tall and broken beds, and still have a lot more to get done because this project seems nonstop. 

This year I have learned that things can get hard, and probably if they don’t then you are doing something wrong, because in life we are all meant to fall and only the strong ones are able to get back up. I had a hard time the first two trimesters this year, school seemed imposible and my class wasn't really helping. Its sad to think how you could be in the same class with the same people for 9 years and still have no trust or confidence with them. I have always been very independent but when someone needs help, we all need to rely on someone or something. Believe it or not my classmates weren't an option, neither teachers, non of them really worried or cared or maybe didn't really noticed how stressed and depressed I was. I rely completely on my garden, it sounds funny but I would work with my tomatoes and watch them grow, something I would focus so much in my garden that I would ignore everything else, I would be in my own little world. They really helped me, the garden really had a big impact on my life, and when things got better, when my tomatoes were two meters tall and producing many tomatoes things got worst. They started dying, they were infected and very unhealthy. It was sad, very hard but iI was already to motivated, I wasn't going to give up not after everything that happened, I was to strong of a person to give up. Here I am now, planting cucumbers and building more beds, I am not giving up and I going to make this project succeed, even if it requires more broken beds and losing more crops.