Projects & Activities

MUN Oxford

A group of 21 BMS students recently travelled to Oxford to attend the first in-person conference in almost three years. The students, accompanied by three teachers, arrived in Oxford on Thursday morning and had the chance to visit the beautiful city with one of the oldest and most highly respected universities in the world. The three-day conference started on Friday when registering in the beautiful town hall, meeting delegates who flew in from all around the globe, with many having set back 10 or more flight hours to get to Oxford. Then students separated into their committees, chaired by Oxford University students. From Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon our students discussed some of the world’s most pressing issues including: The Impact of Covid-19 on Gender Equality and the Rise of Domestic Violence, Monetization of Social Media: The Attention Economy, Supply Chain Risk Mitigation, Keeping the 1.5°c Alive: Meeting the Paris Agreement and Russia’s War Against Ukraine amongst numerous others. Our teachers were touched when seeing BMS students hold speeches, debate and stand their ground while representing their countries’ views in the beautiful Oxford examinations schools’ halls.

Victor, Gr. 11

Lasst die Tiere leben

On Saturday 12th November, five DP students volunteered Mr. Huet at the rescued farm animal sanctuary ‘Lasst die Tiere leben’ in Hasenholz, East Brandenburg. Students involved were Roman R., Anouk Sophia Sch., Matan Z., Philip M. and Philip G.. Having travelled for over two hours to the sanctuary (including a 3-kilometre walk), students then worked relentlessly, tirelessly for almost five hours cleaning up stalls, barns, fields and shifting animal waste into one corner of the sanctuary to create a small mount. The work was not glamorous, but the students’ energy, resilience, good humour and resourcefulness were impressive and heart-warming to see. 'The trench' was a source of pride. Just ask those who participated to find out more! The rescued animals also appreciated the attention and affection given to them by participants.  

Find more information about the rescued farm animal sanctuary here.

CAS: Global Advocacy Club

Once our senior DP students decided to create a space to discuss and develop their perspectives on current global issues, the CAS project of the “Global Advocacy Club” was hatched and the idea of an online platform for the exchange of perspectives was born. With their primary CAS goal focused on spreading awareness about issues not very prevalent in media, the group created an online “ideas exchange” so that their generation could express and discuss the most crucial problems of their time and bring issues happening on the global stage to their local community. By envisioning and developing both the platform and the group´s mission, our students were able to complete the requirements of action and service with this CAS project.

“The global advocacy work gave us the opportunity to put our IB academics in context, and this switch from being a student to being an activist was a nice change during the long hours of study! By just discussing with our fellow students and noticing that we all cared about similar things and that we are all very concerned about the future of our planet, made us feel very connected. That was really encouraging throughout our engagement.”

CAS Collaboration BMS-BVG: Green cities of the future together with Berlin Public Transport

When the BVG approached our Gr. 11 students with the opportunity to reimagine green, urban spaces, our DP Fine Arts students jumped at the chance to put their vision to canvas. The project focused on sustainability in public transport and allowed students to communicate how a future green city could look like, using paint, imagery, and symbolism. The opportunity to fulfill the creativity component of their CAS requirements, meant that the group could express their own artistic creativity through group collaboration, and have it exhibited in a public space.

“We wanted to put a modernized Berlin in the background and we also really wanted to include a natural foreground, to highlight the connection between sustainability and the environment…and to place a tram in the middle of nature, communicating that it had become a part of nature and wasn´t harming it in any way, relying on electricity instead of fossil fuels.”

CAS: Tree Adoption Project

When our students thought about what global issue they could help to solve with a local solution, they chose to contact a local forestry in Rehfelde where they noticed trees were dying. By focusing on immediate and helpful solutions to the impacts of climate change, our students decided to take a more direct route to achieve tangible outcomes. The team organized 2 mass plantings, designed a website to coordinate a “Tree Foster Program” to promote the care of maintenance of the trees, and had their work and engagement featured in local newspaper.

“We wanted to provide an action to our community where we could see immediate and real results. Our generation has created a mass movement to improve our climate and Earth and we wanted to achieve something that our community could see directly. In addition, we wanted to create a legacy for the area, so that through the adoption of trees, families, students, community groups, and everyday people could see the results of their engagement and commitment. We have now built this program of “Trees for the Future” to run for at least 5 years and we hope it continues much longer!”

zukunftsbaeume-patenprojekt.weebly.com/baumkunde.html

CAS: Podcast on Raising Awareness about Global Issues

Reaching out to a wider audience was the aim of our students hoping to launch a podcast that could draw the attention of both budding activists and people hoping to expand their understanding of global issues. By researching and conceptualizing their focus topics, the group was able to feature podcasts on topics such as the COVID-19 Pandemic and the mass pollution of our oceans. By teaming up with fellow graphic designers and videographers in their peer group, the group successfully built the podcast and were able to realize a very important goal, namely convincing listeners to transfer their awareness of the topic under focus to a more tangible outcome by fundraising and supporting charities with a similar mandate. Both creativity and service were realized by the group as part of their IBDP CAS criteria.

“Doing something that we are passionate about and linking it with a CAS project is something that does not stress us since we are simply doing what we like. In this way, we discovered our new strengths or weaknesses which is one way to truly learn about yourself. We have improved at researching, developed dedication to a passion, and learned that we also have an opportunity to educate ourselves about important issues and to actively understand different perspectives.”