Deforestation is one of the biggest issues in today’s world which causes animals to leave their natural habitat and also affects the environmental stability as a whole. This made me think about what I can do as a contribution to protecting nature. That is when I thought to choose a CAS experience of planting trees every week as it gave me the opportunity to do my part through afforestation. I did this experience collaboratively with my friend as he had similar ideas towards the issue and we planted various tree saplings at his farm weekly.
LO3: I started to think of ways to contribute to the global issue of deforestation which how I came up with tree plantation I asked my friend a place that can be used for this task and we then decided an appropriate time for both of us to perform the activity. The planning part was fairly easy but initiating task took a lot of motivation from me which made it a bit difficult as we had to wake up very early as the area took more than an hour to reach. The skill that developed performing this task was time management. I had to find out a time where I was free to do the plantation without any interference. Planning and initiating these type of experiences definitely help in future planning of other activities as this made me figure out the flaws I faced because of poor planning which can be improved for the future.
LO5: Working with other people makes the task easier and quicker. I generally prefer working with others as the people might give out better solutions to occurring problems. While tree plantation, my friend helped me a lot with practices such as digging a perfect hole for the plant and settling it in the soil as my friend was already experienced in tree plantation. Working with my friend made the task very easy and the collaboration allowed the task to finish as quickly as possible. As one gets tired, the other continues the task and vice versa. Working collaboratively is sometimes important as in maximizes the quality of the finished task and it also develops a person’s collaborative skills which can come in handy anytime.
LO6: As said above, the issue I was focusing on was deforestation which is a global issue. Everywhere, trees are getting cut to create infrastructure which is also making animals migrate from their original habitat. One of the best examples is the cutting of trees in the Amazon. Knowing this, it makes me feel sad that there might be problems related to the availability of wood or naturals resources from trees in the upcoming future. My work in this CAS experience made me feel very good as the final result will be very satisfying once the saplings grow to their full length.
LO7: I was offered to use mechanical tools such as machines to do the plantation but I denied it considering the ethical issues. Those machines could cause soli erosion and also removes several nutrients from the soil which are essential for the growth of saplings. Although, this did not affect the task directly and I used the traditional farming tools.
To conclude, the experience was very good and it developed several skills of mine which may be very useful in other activities or experiences. I could connect this experience with learner profile “reflective” as I was able to reflect on the issue as a whole and all the mistakes that were found which conducting this experience.