Keeping our country/ city/ area clean is our responsibility towards our mother land. CAS gave us a brilliant opportunity to show our responsibility. In this experience we made a cycling club in which we are a group of 12 to 15 grade 11 students, we decided to go cycling every Sunday in the month of August, 2021 from VR Mall to Dumas Beach, and do beach cleaning. This way we covered the activity and service aspect of CAS. Our goal here was to improve our physical health, and improve life on land and reduce global warming to some extent.
The learning outcomes that were covered in this experience were Learning Outcome 3 – Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience, Learning outcome 5 – Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively, Learning outcome 6 – Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.
Firstly, talking about LO 3, we contacted students from our grade, asked them if they would like to join the club with us. Eventually we were around 13 to 15 students, the planning was the easy part, but initiating the plan was difficult. As we had decided to go on the weekends, people would not arrive on the given time, a lot of traffic used to be there, also we had to cancel the plan for a weekend as it was really crowded on the beach, and we did not want to take any risk as COVID cases were high at that time. Planning this gave me an idea about how events can be planned and initiated, so this will help me in the future while planning an event like this.
Moreover, LO 5, talks about working together, group tasks are many of the times much more efficient and easy, as we have support of our friends and work can be divided throughout the group. During this activity, it was much easier to work in a group, as we split ourselves in groups of 3 which covered more area around the beach. We all worked collaboratively which led to the success of this activity.
LO 6 – Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance, this activity covers 1 of the major 17 sustainable development goals, Life On Land, because of the waste thrown on the beach, dogs, birds, cows would misunderstand it as food, that affects their health, they could also choke on it and die instantly. Cleaning out the beach reduced the rate of animals that die everyday because of choking on plastic to some extent. This is a global issue, and it makes me feel really bad as people know about this issue but still don’t take any action regarding this.
LO 7 – Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Cycling ethics include signalling when turning left or right, halting at a red light, keeping in the left lane, and cycling in small groups. When cycling on the road, it is important that you emphasize your manners. Our group was traveling, and we all stayed in the left lane, riding in a straight line, and staying near to each other in case of any problems, such as a flat tire. And following the road regulations. Adding on about beach cleaning, Environmental impact: While cleaning the beach is necessary to keep the region clean, it is also critical to ensure that the cleaning procedure does not affect the ecosystem. Chemicals or cleaning agents, for example, that might affect marine life or ecosystems must be avoided. Waste disposal: It is important to properly dispose of the garbage produced during the beach cleaning. It is critical to ensure that garbage is properly separated and disposed of in a manner that does not impact the environment or animals.