Differentiation Entry

My CAS project is a way in which I can give back to the place where I’ve lived almost all my life, and to influence other people to take care of the beaches and oceans that are so important for our community, our province, and our country. It has been more than a year since I started this project, and since I had my first event. A little over one year ago, I met with people from the community that had similar interests as my project, and with some brainstorming we organized a beach clean-up in Potrero Beach. The day of the event, when I arrived, what I saw completely changed my view on CAS, from a project I have to complete for IB, to an opportunity of helping my community and making a change. Connect Ocean was showing a video of micro plastics to a group of very young children. They were all sitting down paying close attention to the video, and once the clean-up started, I saw some of the kids enjoying the fact of cleaning the beach. I’m glad I got to see this at the beginning of my project, as this made me realize the impact that I could have, especially on younger children in the area. This turned into one of my objectives in my project, as it would be great if young children start learning about the importance of helping our environment and the benefits that these beaches have for the well-being of the people in Guanacaste. Another inspiring moments was a few months ago, when I printed some posters about placing single-use masks on bins as I noticed this was an issue. When I taped on of the posters to a bus stop near Potrero, there was a man sitting there probably waiting for the bus. Once I finished putting the poster, he immediately went to see what it said. I realize that what I do in my project, can influence other people. It made me realize that people usually watch when someone does this things, so when I had clean-ups, or when I put these posters, or any action that I take for my project, people in the community can see this. By realizing this, I know that with what I do for my project, I can influence other people to do similar things. These two events really made me grow, and understand the importance of my actions. I can’t be sure about this, but thee actions that people notice can also make them grow and make them learn about this. For this reason I consider CAS important, and not only something I have to complete for IB, but something I can continue doing after I graduate to make these. Changes and influence people to take these actions as well. Since my first event, that motivated me to keep working and continue putting this effort in CAS to have an impact on the local communities. This motivation will work not. Only for this project, but also for life. It thought me about the importance of our actions and the impact that they may have on people. A good action, can be a lesson for someone, and this can continue in a chain. This is very motivating from CAS projects.