Clubs

Student Life and Sevice

High School clubs have had a difficult year, with both internal and external Covid re-

strictions hampering their efforts to meet on campus for activities, and also plan and run events. Nonetheless, they have persevered, and numerous clubs have finished the year positively by holding events, and taking part in competitions. The following articles highlight just a few of the club activities that took place during the later part of second semester.

Mr. Ben Weil Student Life Coordinator

MYOB CLUB The “Mind Your Own Business” club opens a door of opportunities for those who are passionate about business and entrepreneurship. Our club provides members with webinars, camps, and competitions that introduce students to the basics of business.

Through these activities, our members gain valuable experiences, develop social connections, and learn skills such as communication, leadership, and teamwork. One of the webinars we hosted was focused on the process of creating a business along with exploring how businesses operate in a professional way.

Members were able to gain an insight into being a good leader and grasp business concepts.

SASTE Project Our team found a common issue in our daily lives that ties with the global issue of food waste from the market research we conducted to investigate deeper into customer behavior in eating their meals. We had a sample of 30 high school students and their family members and conducted a survey with them in regards to how often they have leftover food in each meal. The results showed that up to 53% of the respondents frequently have leftover foods. 29% sometimes have leftover foods after each meal and only 18% rarely have leftovers. The data here clearly shows that we can take this opportunity to make use of the leftover foods, reduce food waste, and create joy during the creation of new recipes.

61 59 3 CONCORDIAN IMPACT - ISSUE 32 33

Through this we created a presentation introducing an application that provides a menu from leftovers ingredients from each user. Our team members created the app prototype to support our presentation. With teamwork we were able to win the greatest social award and believe that this business competition gave us opportunities to explore our ideas. Here is the business mission statement from the SASTE team: We aim to become a platform that will achieve "Making morality more convenient" for our conscious customers, with a vision statement of "We will be more than a platform that offers a convenient lifestyle, but a middle ground between comfort and sustainability". Therefore, we are here with a platform, “SASTE” that would transform leftover ingredients to win dishes emphasizing the global issue of food waste.

Jean G11, Mim G11, Poj G9, Pleng G11, Huihui G11

CONCORDIAN IMPACT - ISSUE 34

Secondly, one of our greatest achievements was collaborating with a professional organization called “Bangkok Entrepreneur Student Tryouts ”. Through this, we were able to extend our experiences through valuable webinars. For instance, tips and tricks on public speaking, the rising metaverse world, how to organize a business club, and much more. In addition, two of our club members also joined a business competition called “Bangkok Entrepreneurial Student Tryouts 2022” and won the award for greatest social impact!

Student Life and Sevice

We took the initiative by reaching out to influencers to increase brand exposure. This allowed us to gain a wider variety of customers and raise awareness of the club’s mission. As a result of club members' work and our marketing approach, we sold a total of 200 sweatshirts and pieces of jewelry. The funds will be used for our upcoming planting trips and future projects. In addition to that, we aim to support clean food consumption. Our club members have been harvesting plants on a regular basis and selling the organic batches to the school community. While we may not be able to sell our organic batches outside of school, we were able to promote clean food consumption within our school community. Even on a small scale, we are able to tackle environmental issues by lowering embedded water, lowering energy consumption, and promoting clean food consumption.

This year, our club also collaborated with Grade 11 for the stem initiative. We took part by showing our expertise regarding plant growth and collaborating in the development of design and product engineering of the plant watering system. As a grade, we designed an energy efficient and suitable watering system for plant growth. The product is currently in the planning stage.

Seed of Hope Seed of Hope is a club dedicated to taking action to address the current issues of climate change and deforestation. These challenges include rising sea levels, increasing frequency of heat waves and flooding, etc., which have taken the lives of 5 million people per year. The problem has been proven to have a negative impact on human livelihoods and is projected to have a more severe negative impact in the future.

For months, we have been looking into regions in Thailand that are very vulnerable to climate change hazards. We've discovered one, Lopburi, เขาพระยาเดินธง, where forests have been decimated and people are constantly suffering from flooding. Not a lot of foundations are doing anything to restore these specific areas, therefore, we see the chance of intervening.

CONCORDIAN IMPACT - ISSUE 33

CONCORDIAN IMPACT - ISSUE 34 32

62 60 3

We plan to take action by planting a total of 3,000 plants to create more carbon sinks to absorb greenhouse gas and pollution, and a forest barrier for flooding to protect these vulnerable people. We have raised approximately 150,000 baht to purchase the materials required for planting. We, as a club, sold terrariums, sweatshirts we designed, and cooperated with a local jewelry brand (Gail’s Jewelry) to release a Seed of Hope collection where all profits will go to the planting project. We marketed our product via Instagram (seedofhope.store), which is targeted towards young adults.

Our club has also been one of the two clubs from our school that was selected to compete for the IB Student Innovator platform and grant competition. We compete against IB school clubs from all over the world. During the process, we created presentations and pitched our ideas to the innovator. As a result, we were one of the semi-finalists amongst all the other IB students.

Another thing we did throughout the year was collaborate with MQDC. During the year, we received 1000 plants from MQDC that we will be planting in Lopburi during our upcoming trip. In return, we have been taking care of a total of 3,000 plants for them during three months. We consistently create schedules for members to water the total of 3,000 plants throughout the year.

In the future, we plan to continue our productivity in our school garden and promote clean organic food. To expand our impact outside of the school community, we will also reprogram the app “We Grow” and use the funds we collected to reengineer the application to better suit the new generation. Although the impact may only be on a local scale, it is the exhilarating feeling we gained from the contribution we made to the community.

Student Life and Sevice

Grade 11 Plant STEM Initiative This semester Grade 11 students embarked on a STEM Project. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. STEM projects can be any sort of engagement but for our Grade 11 students, it meant a plant watering and irrigation system.

Students were sorted into expertise groups based on their knowledge or community involvement in the following fields: Science, Design, Engineering Club, Seed of Hope (planting charity), Math, Environmental Systems and Societies.

Homeroom STEM certificate winners: Leadership and Perseverance Pimnipa (Mimi) Pipugsmoot 11C Engineering and Math Ruayjirawat, Chuntaput (Tiro) 11I Science and Technology Patanwit (Leeung) Sawatyanon 11S

They identified the various challenges of building a water irrigation system in homeroom groups and came up with a series of conceptual designs which had to include all aspects of STEM. They later developed one feasible design idea and made a scale model with the intention to build a lifesize solution.

During the STEM project, the most valuable aspect of the experience was seeing many skills from different people and different subjects being used.

Rose G11I Planning, giving ideas, making sure ideas work, and thinking of materials to use, was most valuable.

Dash 11C Building the model was the best part of the STEM project because we had to adapt to problems on point. Even when we faced difficulties we collaborated and no one blamed others.

Jean 11S CAS and gaining knowledge was important to me because this particular STEM project will help my portfolio in the agriculture field.

Wynn 11S

CONCORDIAN IMPACT - ISSUE 33 32

CONCORDIAN IMPACT - ISSUE 34

61 3 63

Student Life and Sevice

Canducare Club Despite facing many challenges from strict Covid-19 regulations and the constraints of online learning in the beginning of the year, our club was able to persevere through these issues by adapting to the pandemic situation at school. At first, we had planned on continuing our fundraiser project from last year by initiating the Thai Music concert charity. Sadly, the strict social distancing and “bubble” guidelines prevented us from doing so. We had to turn to our Plan B, which was to write literature reviews on social, psychological, and mental issues. By doing so, we managed to meet our goal of raising awareness on health-related issues.

Initially, we gathered students from other schools who are also interested in doing so to collaborate with us. We became a CanDuCare community rather than just a club. We worked on four literature reviews throughout the whole year, on topics including beauty standards in the 21st century, the genotoxicity of burnt foods, the effect of social norms and taboos on gynecological health, and music therapy on mental health patients. Through writing these literature reviews, our members not only developed their research and critical thinking skills, but also their writing skills. Our work blocks were spent giving peer feedback, as we believe that learning from each other is the most efficient form of learning.

CONCORDIAN IMPACT - ISSUE 33

CONCORDIAN IMPACT - ISSUE 34 32

64 62 3

However, we never gave up on our fundraising initiatives, as

Student Life and Sevice

we believe, in accordance with the IB, which informs our lives, that a student must be well-rounded. Science starts with an s, as does service. With that in mind, and with a gradual easing of the Covid-related regulations, we decided to try to run the Thai Music concert again, this time successfully. The aims of the concert included spreading Thai culture in the Concordian community and raising funds for a hospital in Chacheongsao province. We coordinated with the Thai department to create a multicultural performance consisting of talented primary and secondary school students. From MC-ing to selling T-shirts, working backstage, and performing, our club members were all super busy with and dedicated to this charity concert. Now, at the end of this project, we are massively proud to announce that we have raised around 140,000 baht to purchase a dialysis machine for Wat Samatratanaran Hospital! We are really happy to be making a positive social impact and we hope that the machine can help patients improve their quality of life.

Finally, we would like to thank all our club members, Mr. Alessio (our club advisor), Kru A, and everyone who has helped us with the projects throughout the year! We hope that everyone enjoyed being a part of the Canducare community!

65 63 3 CONCORDIAN IMPACT - ISSUE 34

CONCORDIAN IMPACT - ISSUE 32 33