Student Life and Service
Student Life
and Service Learning Middle School Service
In our first edition of Impact for 2021-22, we talked with our dedicated service leaders – Ms. Chelsea (G6), Ms. Tashia (G7), Mr. Aaron (Community Project – G8), Mr. Jaren (G9), and Mr. Luke (G10) – and they each outlined the path ahead for their respective grade’s service programs for the year ahead. Since then, each of the leaders has worked diligently through the Covid restrictions to guide our students towards meaningfully affecting communities, both inside Concordian and outside. Some of the grades have now completed their first mini-projects, while others are mid-project, and in this issue of Impact, we have asked our students to share the service experiences they have had so far this year. Mr. Ben Student Life Coordinator/Service Coordinator
Save the Paws
Our service project relates to the Good Health and WellBeing SDG, and the Mental Health and Well-Being Concordian Service Area. The group was formed by Ami, Nina, Icon, Manie, and Keaw. We want to help the Concordian community by making mindfulness posters regarding how to practice mindfulness. We did some research about mindfulness and Ami and Nina designed meditation posters with the information that we found. We thought of the service project by knowing that many people get stressed nowadays from work, school, etc. We found that mindfulness can help relieve those stresses and help us relax more. We all felt really good about the project and we all did a great job on communicating and putting a lot of effort in these posters. It was really fun to work as a team, and we are all glad that we succeeded.
Hello, we are Kimmie, Tepan, Airi, Jimmy, and Tora from G6D, and we created the service group Save the Paws which is dedicated to help, save, and rescue soi dogs. The Concordian service area is animal wellbeing and the Sustainable Development Goal is Life on Land. We all helped with organizing donations and the charity drive. Our type of service is indirect service because we collected money to donate to บ้านสุขใจหมาจรป้าเกด (Pa Khed Soi Dog Foundation). They requested the things they needed most and we bought it for them with our charity drive money. We thought of this idea because when we drive to school, we see so many dogs in the soi and we really wanted to help them. We knew this place needed the most help because there had the most animals (342 dogs including puppies and 48 cats including kittens). There were 7 dogs with cancer who needed immediate medical care so we helped pay some of their hospital bills. We feel very proud and grateful of what we have accomplished. If we really wanted to end the chaos of soi dogs as a long-term solution, we should all work together as a community to help.
Ami, Nina, Keaw, Icon, and Manie
Airi, Kimmie, Tepan, Jimmy, Tora
Grade 6 Service Projects – 1st Projects
Grade 7 Service Projects Animal Comfort Group
Hello, we are the Animal Comfort group from Grade 7. Our service project focused on helping animals in need, based on the UN SDG Life on Land. In this project, we were able to provide food and equipment for animals at the WFFT foundation who help injured and unwanted animals.
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We started off by designing and experimenting with different designs for our stickers and T-Shirts. Then, we created a Google Form and sent it out to the entire MYP. After a while, we collected all of the orders and packaged our products. With all of the income we got from selling our stickers and shirts, we went out to Mega Bangna and bought several items from the wishlist of the WFFT foundation. This included things such as gloves, syringes, cleaning supplies, shampoo, food, etc. We then visited the WFFT foundation during the winter holidays and donated the items to them. Proud S, Proud B, Hunny, IngIng, Reena
Student Life and Service
Grade 8 – Community Project February Update
We think that the community project is an eye-opener for us, since we had the chance to become more aware of the many problems that other people are facing in our country. Our group chose to focus on an orphanage called Baan Nokkamin and we're hoping to donate books along with traveling to the place to volunteer and help take care of the children. Though we all worked together well and tried our best to further improve our plans for both the direct and indirect service, there were some challenges that we faced throughout our community project, such as the current coronavirus situation. We are currently predicting that we wouldn’t be able to visit the organization directly, since it will bring risks to both us and the orphanage. Instead, we are planning to send the children books donated from the people in our school and sanitize them to ensure that the children are completely safe around the books that we give to their organization. Hence, overall, we think that the community project enhances our ATL skills in many ways. We did some research, communicated with different people from outside the school, and are planning to use our creativity to make a poster. It really is an effective service project for students to participate in. Pear, Pim, Mei
Grade 7 Service Projects – 1st Projects Mangrove Tree Service Group
Peach, Niji, Candy, Pete, Prin
Pai, Henry, Petch
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Hello! We are the mangrove tree service group from Grade 7, and today we’ll be explaining what happened during our service project. We helped a small Thai community that is near a mangrove tree forest close to Bangkok. We went into the forest and were able to plant multiple trees that will grow and help the ecosystem, therefore also helping the people around and helping to keep the village from flooding. The CSA we targeted was environmental service, and as individuals we feel that this project affected us a lot. Not only did we bond with each other but we really felt that we did something kind.
Community service never fails to be a great learning experience. This year has been no different, but our group has had its ups and downs. For our project, we want to help teach people different skills that could help them make money online. We’ve seen a lot of people lose their jobs during the pandemic and job openings are becoming rarer as a result of the worsening economy. In order to help these people, we decided to host an online job expo. It follows the Covid protocols and can be very educational for all. Currently, we are working on our research portion, trying to find the most effective online platforms that people can easily learn. Hopefully, by the end of March, we will have a clear estimation of when the event will occur. Even though we haven't finished our project yet, it has been a great year so far and we can't wait to see what we have in store for the future. For the most part, community service in eighth grade has been a blast and even with our difficulties, we tend to learn from our mistakes and usually reach even higher highs; we hope to help those in need and teach them skills that they can knowledgeably apply in the future.
Student Life and Service
Grade 9 Independent Service Projects – February Update Food Waste Individual Service Project Over 64% of all waste in Thailand derives from food and yet only a small proportion of this amount is ever recycled, contributing to 8% of all carbon emissions. Despite this, over 9% of Thais are still hungry and malnourished. Therefore, as part of our Grade 9 Independent Service Project, we will be examining the social, environmental, and psychological factors related to food waste. The food waste project is separated into three main sections: research, advocacy, and direct service. We have made the most progress in the area of research where background information on our own food waste habits including how much waste our households create and some national food waste statistics have been collected. We will also be conducting interviews on the psychology of food waste to learn more about ways humans can reduce food waste. Our group has also started planning our advocacy campaign and created an Instagram account to distribute our findings, including research-based methods to reduce food waste and low waste food recipes. Additional information such as the social, environmental, and psychological effects of food waste will also be provided through this channel. Last but not least, our members are also planning to incorporate our learned knowledge into our own daily lives, including trying out our low-waste recipes and applying relevant techniques. The result and effectiveness of these techniques will be recorded and published accordingly through our communication channels to further inform the public. Our hope is that these efforts will inform the community about the subject of food insecurity which is often ignored. Poj, Dou Dou W, Peam, Pam, and Pud
G10 Service As Action Projects | February Update
In February 2022, the Grade 10 students are moving from the goal-setting and planning phases toward the action phase of their service projects and the student projects presented are of great variety and are sure to make a difference. Here are some examples of the inspiring student projects: WHAT? We will create a green plant wall WHY? The reason we are doing this project is to raise awareness about our SDG7. As it is related to affordable and green energy, our project will be an example of one product that could help solve the issue. Bhannasiri, Yanin (Chur) WHAT? We will create a sketch of green architecture and also create the model in Minecraft. WHERE? This idea will be presented on the Minecraft subreddit and also on Instagram with the aim to reach as many people as possible by utilizing the reach of social media. HOW? We will measure the success of the project mainly through the number of downloads and through the responses in the comments section. If the reception is mainly positive, then we would know that the project has been successful. Chaiyawan, Vongvanich (Kanoon) WHAT? Book collection and book donation WHY? It’s hard to help local schools with the restrictions imposed by Covid-19, but a book drive would be a good solution to not only utilize the students in our school who have books lying around at home but also benefit schools who need more English and/or children's books. Chavalittamrong, Prinn WHAT? We will create a public service announcement to raise awareness regarding Quality Education for All. WHY? The way we are going to run our campaign is through social media because social media has the power to reach a high number of people. Moreover, the cause is important to us because we understand that there are many kids out there who don’t have the same opportunities as others who are more fortunate to have access to high quality education, thus making them unemployed. Haluethaisirirach, Yada (Grace)
MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENT GOVERNMENT This year the MSSG has been put in a tenuous position. With the
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pandemic hindering many activities that were our bread and butter, we had to adapt. Building from the ideas developed last year by Poj detailing methods to increase the relevance of Houses, we created house shirts. We focused on online marketing and ordering to curb the pandemic's effect on the project. We ordered 100 shirts as a testament to the confidence we have in this project and our long term commitment to it. If possible, we would like to have in-person sales events - we highly encourage all of our peers (even if you aren't in Middle School) and teachers to buy a shirt. We would really appreciate it.
Strengthening the influence of houses in student life is what the officers of this year hope will be continued by those who succeed us. It is vital that houses play a larger role in student life. They promote inter-grade level friendship and friendly competition. Lively competition also opens new doors in terms of events and new levels of fun!
Student Life and Service
Despite the many limitations brought about by the pandemic, we were able to organize many events. The Secret Santa event is one we particularly enjoyed. Many people participated and hopefully this event will be replicated next year.
As a result of the many restrictions on human interaction, we weren't able to organize many events of the sport variant. We heavily focused on fundraising. It is our hope that the following years will put the money that we have raised to good use, specifically to further the relevance of houses in everyday student life.
We have also organized a Rose Sale for Valentine's Day. Much like the event from the previous year, it went well. In addition, we We hope that the latter half of this school year will bring about a improved on some of our logistical shortcomings (from last year), return to normalcy. The prospect of having activities gives us reason making our preparation for said sale less hectic. to believe that the rest of the year presents an upward trend. Burger S. 8I, Katie V. 8C and Otto K. 8C
House Shirt Designed by a G7 Volunteer and Finalized by the Officers.
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT GOVERNMENT
We are now more than halfway through the school year, time passes
by fast. Congratulations to all students finishing the exams! Though it was tough, that only means you have taken a step forward.
Originally, the student government planned an on-site scavenger hunt with items placed around the school, but due to Covid restrictions that did not happen. Therefore we opted for an online scavenger hunt where students would “hunt” for pictures. We received many funny photo submissions such as the one on the above with the prompt “When you wake up from a nap and don’t know what time it is.” As a bonus, many grades attempted the Jojo meme such as the one on the left by the Grade 11s.
For example, on the last day before Christmas break, everyone dressed up with red or green elements. Due to Covid restrictions, the Christmas activity this year was held online. The whole HS played several online games together including gartic phone, quizlet live, jeopardy, and much more. With all the activities, the HS had a fun last day before Winter break. HSSG Representatives: Poon G11S, Melody G10S, Kenji G9C
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Another event that was held was Spirit Week. This year, Spirit Week consisted of Pajama day, gender nonconformity day, fashion disaster + anything but backpack day, Squad day, and Christmas theme was held as the last day of Spirit week. Each day, all students were to dress up to fit the theme and to show spirit.
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Although we’ve faced challenges with several Covid restrictions, everyone in the HSSG still tries to put the utmost effort into planning activities for the students to enjoy. Whether it’d be the Halloween, Christmas, or Valentine's Day activities, bringing people together in spirit is always the best part about these celebrations. Most of the interactions that the students of different grades have had with one another have sadly been online so far, however, that doesn’t mean that all the activities are less engaging. Even when some of us are in isolation, we are able to find a way to socialize and have fun with our friends. More inter-grade-level activities such as those during Spirit Week, photo competitions, online games and even the upcoming online Talent Show help everyone to still interact with one another more safely. We just hope everything gets better and we can have regular in-person activities soon!