CAS

  October 5th, 2020 As school has been starting up online I have started going on walks with my mom in the morning as we did in the mornings during online school at the end of last year. It has been really nice and having this consistent exercise is undoubtedly good for me. However, it is a stark reminder of the fact that I am not at school in person as due to how far away from school I live it is not realistic for me to have time to go on walks before school during a regular year. It has been very hard for me to continue online school while others are going in person (with many changes from last year, masks, distancing, barriers, one-way hallways, no lockers, no using the fridge or microwaves, and lunch is only allowed outside and very far from others) but it doesn’t seem like going in person would be the best thing for me at this. My brother is at pretty significant risk of health issues if he happened to get covid so we are all being extra cautious for his sake. While online sch...

September 26, 2020 We have finally gotten the dirt that will be going in the planter boxes delivered (It was delivered one week ago). It was delivered on the back of a huge truck that drove up and dumped it all in a big heap on our driveway. I had previously not really understood the scale of what 11.5 cubic yards of dirt would look like. It was about 25,300 pounds of dirt (or 11,475 kg) and the resources that we had to move it were 1 wheelbarrow, 3 shovels, my brother, my sister, and me. Needless to say, we are not nearly done yet. It is a ridiculously large amount of dirt to move but we are making progress (however hard it may be to see) and I am excited to see us getting closer and closer to having the boxes ready to plant in. This was absolutely an act of action and I believe that it demonstrates learning outcome 4 as we have been working on this project for months and have stayed dedicated to seeing it through to its completion.

August 20, 2020 School usually would have started by now and the initial joy of spending more time at home is starting to run out. However, I have started many new things during this time that I find to be very enjoyable, one of which is baking more often. I have started baking bread and it has been rather delightful. As opposed to going out and trying to find people that I think might be safe and spending time with them my family and I have been very cautious with covid and have found more creative ways to spend our time, my baking was one of these. We have considered the ethics of going out and spending time with others and have come to the conclusion that while it would be very enjoyable it is not the right thing to do as we simply don’t know enough. I dug our old bread maker out from the pantry and have been making lots of loaves and experimenting and as I have learned more I have become more creative with the things that I do with it. I believe that this falls under learning outco...

  July 25, 2020 The boxes have finally been built and soon it will be time to begin filling them with dirt. So far the process has been quite rewarding, the boxes are assembled and I had to dig small-ish  (perhaps 1 ft deep) ditches where the boxes will be resting and set them in them because of how we made them. I really enjoyed this part of the process as it allowed me to just put some headphones in, play some music, and sort of turn my brain off, dig, and just get the job done. It did take a long time and I was extremely sore every day after working on it but it was still very enjoyable. As I was digging I had tasked my brother and sister with putting the final pieces of the boxes together and it was very nice to have all three of us working on different parts of the process because we were able to complete it faster that way. This fulfills learning outcome 5 “Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively” and this step in the process is absol...

June 9, 2020 I have continued the project towards having functioning planter boxes, I have acquired the materials and am working on assembling the boxes. It has been taking much longer to do than I had previously thought it would, partially due to my own mistakes but partly due to the lack of help from my siblings. I have completely taken over the entire construction part of this project which would be nice if there wasn’t so much that needed to be done to put the boxes together. It has genuinely been quite physically draining and I can say without a doubt that this falls under the category of activity. “Physical exertion contributing to a healthy lifestyle” I’m making a garden so we can have fresh fruits and vegetables. I can’t think of anything that fits that description more than this. This also completes learning outcome 4 “Show Commitment to and perseverance in a fieldwork experience.” This has been an ongoing project and will require continued work until it is finally seen throug...

  May 24th, 2020  During this extra time at home my little sister and I have realized some things about our house that we are really not a huge fan of and things that we wanted to improve. One of the biggest things that we realized our house was missing out on was the opportunity to have a large garden. We compiled a list of materials to make planter boxes and ended up planning to make 5 planter boxes that were 8ft by 3 ft that we would make, fill with dirt, and plant assorted things in. As of right now we only have the plans for them but we have spent a lot of time deciding on materials and how we would construct them and what will go in them. We went with a wood frame with corrugated metal sides for the structure of the boxes with a thin wood trip at the top for purely aesthetic purposes. This fulfills learning outcome 3 as I initiated and planned this learning experience and got to work devising plans for it. This falls under Creativity as we had to use creativity when crea...

  April 9, 2020 Well, we’ve been at home for almost 3 extra weeks now and it doesn’t look like things are going to return to normal all that quickly. Lovely. In my extra time at home, I have started going on walks with my mom in the morning. It is something that I find enjoyable to do and Is good for me. We wake up around 7:30, walk around the neighborhood, about 1.5 miles and come home, shower, have breakfast, and start our days. This has been a nice consistent thing in my life which has quickly become full of a lot of uncertainty. It was a nice opportunity to actually have this new time to exercise, I believe that this fulfills learning outcome 1 as I have identified my own strengths and weaknesses and worked towards growth by exercising.