CAS plan

In this post I will show all the activities I have already started, some that I planned to start in a near future and others that have already finished. It also contains some additional informations, such as, the amount of hours proposed, the number of hours already completed, the learning outcomes and the proposals of evidence and if it is a long term project or a short term project.
Some of the activities haven't take place.

Report - Creating and developing games at an informatics company

On the summer of 2015 between the days of 17/08/2015 to 21/08/2016 I attended to a professional training course at a firm called Rumos where I created and developed video games. In this project I’ve learned the basis for the creation of a game and I even made my own game.

I participated in this project, because I always wondered how were games made, also I love to play video games, so I took the opportunity and before going to this project I talked with some friends and I told them to come so it would be more fun.

My personal goals were learn how to make games, create my own game and try to understand if I would like to follow a career in this type of business.

This activity is considered to be creativity since I’m learning new things and developing new understandings.

With this project I achieved some learning outcomes. I understood that game developing is not as easy as it seems but when you finally finish your work it is very rewardable, because you can ask other person to play it and give their opinion. It was a new experience for me, because I had never used a special program to make games. I worked with a partner which was crucial for this project, because we created and developed the game together.

I’m grateful that I participated on this project, I was able to create a game for the first time in my life, however I can’t run the game in my computer because the program I used to made it is not compatible with the software installed in the computer.

Swimming - Intermediate report

In September 2016 started a new CAS activity which consists on swimming at Ginásio Clube Português twice a weak. I will have lessons of one our each with a swimming teacher.

It will be a new experience for me, because although I already know how to swim I’ve never swim in a 25 meters long pool.

My objectives with this activity are improve my swimming skills and my physical health and learn the only swimming style that I still don’ know which is the butterfly stroke.

I will spend approximately 60 hours of action in this activity.

The learning outcomes for this activity are:

      1-     Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

      2-     Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

For this activity it is required swimming trunks, slippers, swimming goggles and swimming cap.

I think during the lessons I will swallow water sometimes, also I will have some trouble on controlling my respiration when swimming the freestyle stroke.

Soon I will publish more intermediate reports, stay tuned!!

Report - Sporting academy

Last summer I went to a project of duration of a week at Sporting academy. On this project I will spend one week at the Sporting Academy where I will play football. I will also have other activities such as karaoke night, treasure hunt, futvolei, table tennis, snooker, pool games, quizzes etc. The participants of this activity must have between 7 and 16 years and they are going to be separated by ages.

What motivated me to participate on this project was that it was a unique opportunity to play football at a well-known Portuguese football team academy, also I went there in hope of meeting with some of the players of the team, unfortunately we weren’t allowed to interact with them.

Our timetable was always full during the morning we woke up at 9 am every day, at 9:15 am it was time for breakfast, from 11 am to 12:30 am we started our first football training of the day then we ate the lunch at 1 pm. During the afternoon we had several different activities and at 5 pm it was lunchtime, we started our second football training of the day from 5:30 pm to 7 pm. The dinner was at 8 pm and after the dinner made more activities until 11 pm which was bedtime.

My personal goals with this activity were learning how to play football better, learn how to play as team and increase my physical health.

This activity is considered to be action, because I will be playing football and increasing my skills at it.

With this project I achieved some of the learning outcomes. I was able to increase my football skills, also I noticed that my best position in a football game was to play as a defender. I developed my communication with my teammates increasing our efficiency as a team, during the week I spend at the Sporting academy I realised that communication was one of the key to win the game. Before going to the academy I was a little bit afraid, because I thought that my football skills weren’t good enough, but fortunately I wasn’t the case

I made some good friends and I still contact with some of them, however I only contact with them through the internet, because some of them don’t live in the same city as I do.

Overall, I think this project was very good to improve my football skills and to learn some different perspectives playing in different positions and to understand in each one do I fit better, but the most important thing was that I felt like I had the schedule of a professional football player during that week.

Report - project at National Health Institute Dr. Ricardo Jorge

Last summer I went to a project of duration of a week at the National Health Institute Dr. Ricardo Jorge in Lisbon. In this project I analyzed different samples of food such as tomatoes, fish, sushi and many different crustaceans (all this samples were crushed and transformed into a kind of liquid). The objective of the investigation is to learn more about areas of good laboratory practice and safety, food quality, food composition table, chemical analysis in food and inorganic contaminants, but the main objective of the activity is to identify certain elements and the quantity present in each sample that may be harmful for the human health.

Some of the things that motivated me to participate on this project are my attraction to spend part of my summer in more intellectual activities from subjects that might interest me and direct me in the future and the fact that I worked with another person of my age, unfortunately we were very limited on our intervention on the investigation due to our lack of experience and for our own safety since we were dealing with high end machines which are very expensive and difficult to use, but the main reason why I participated in this project was because it is directed to the career that I would like to choose in the future which is agronomy.

My personal goals with this activity were understanding if the study of the chemical composition of food matched my interests, also increase my knowledge about this topic, engage with an issue with global importance because many times food is harvest in places with contaminated soils, water and air this will obviously affect human health and could eventually lead to death.

This activity is considered creativity, because I developed new understandings which I already referred.

With this project I achieved some of the learning outcomes. I was able to understand how different types of food are analysed, also I was able to use some of the knowledge that I learned from my chemistry lessons. Normally I don’t usually attend to this kind of projects, because I’m a little bit shy however I was able to overcome this fear. Finally I understood how the analisation of food samples was so important to identify potential element in a sample which might be harmful for people all around the world.

I worked with another partner although, I think he’s presence wasn’t too significant since the only thing we made was listen to the researchers that were with us and learn more about the topic. However it is always good to have somebody of my age to talk and discuss with.

Overall I think this project was very enriching to my knowledge since I was able to work in a laboratory with very good equipment, unfortunately I wasn’t able to use it, also I engaged with a global problem that might affect a millions of people per year.

There is a small article written about the project I participated. You can check it at this link: http://www.insa.pt/sites/INSA/Portugues/ComInf/Noticias/Paginas/CV2016terminaDAN.aspx

This is me and my partner writing in tubes in order to identify them

Practising tennis - Third Intermediate Report

Tomorrow is Tuesday and I will finally restart my tennis lessons. I’m very excited and hopefully I will be in my best shape. During the last year I made some good progresses on my tennis technical capacities and I’m looking forward to improve them even more along this year. Unfortunately I didn’t had time to play tennis during the summer so I might be a little bit rusty at the beginning.  

I’m anxious in finding out if my tennis teacher and colleagues are the same from the last year.

During this year my objectives maintain the same as last year, which are participating at least in one more tournament, increase my technical capacities on playing tennis and increase my physical health.

I hope to achieve all my objectives and to outdo myself.

I have already spent 40 hours on this activity

This is the declaration from last year.

CASA - Third intermediate report

Last Sunday, I helped as usual the association CASA. My task was to cut tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots. The meals that we make for the homeless people usually contain a lot of cooked vegetables because its healthier and many of them don’t have strong enough teeth to eat other types of food. After finishing my task that was given to me I gave all the cut vegetables to the cook. When the food was finally cooked we started packing it in small boxes. The food that we prepared for the homeless was vegetables with mince. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get bread for the homeless, because our provider didn’t appear.

Since there weren’t enough volunteers to deliver the food I had to go help them. The local we went to deliver the food is called Gare do Oriente. As I reached the place several homeless started to make a row in front of me and the other volunteer that was with me. The volunteer that was with me started giving a hot packed box of food and a fork to each homeless, while I gave them fruit such as peaches, bananas and figs and a plastic cup of water. In total we gave 70 hot packed boxes of food.

I have already spend 50 hours in this activity.

Practising tennis - Second Intermediate Report

My objectives with this activity are learning how to play tennis, participate on a tournament and increase my physical health.

Two weeks ago I finally participated on a tournament.

The tournament was organized in groups of three. Unfortunately my opponents were better than me so I lost both matches against my them.

However, at the end of the tournament I was happy because it was a good experience and I learned a lot from it.

I also had many difficulties during the tournament specially when playing against my opponents which means I still have to improve a lot.

In this two images you can see me playing against one of my opponents

Practising Tennis - Intermediate report

In September 2015 I have started a CAS activity which consists on playing tennis once a week. I will have the help of a tennis teacher.

This is going to be a long term project.

My objectives with this activity are learning how to play tennis, participate on a tournament and increase my physical health.

I will spend approximately 60 hours of action in this activity.

The learning outcomes of this activity are:

      1-     Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

      2-     Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

      4 -    Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

      5 -    Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively

For this activity it is required a tennis racquet.

Since it is the first year that I’m going to play tennis I definitely will have some difficulties on learning how to play it.

Soon I will publish some more intermediate reports and some images too.

CASA - Second intermediate report

Yesterday it was like any other day with a slight difference which was: I did volunteering! I was responsible for cutting the vegetables such as broccoli, cabbages and tomatoes with help of other volunteers. After cutting all the vegetables we washed them with water and gave it to the cook. But the cook told us that there weren’t enough vegetables so we had to take vegetables from the fridge that were half damaged because of the low temperatures. I had some problems with cutting those vegetables because I had to avoid the damaged parts. Afterwards I started to fill a box with soft fruits such as bananas, grapes and oranges because many of the homeless people have no teeth. Finally I helped packing the boxes with the hot meals that the cook have been preparing that where later delivered in specific places.The most difficult thing I had to do was cutting the tomatoes because they are very soft and every time I tried to cut one of them the liquid inside started flowing out of the tomato rapidly.

In this image you can se me packing up hot meal boxes

CASA - Intermediate report

In September I have started a CAS activity in an association called CASA (centro de apoio ao sem abrigo).

This is going to be a long term activity.

In this association we receive food from many different supermarkets and restaurants including fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, and some cakes. After receiving the food we start preparing it to be cooked. During the time the food is being cooked we make tea to then deliver to the homeless people and fruit salad. When the food is ready we start to pack it in small boxes, each box contains food for one homeless people. After that we put the tea, the cooked food and the salad fruit in a car in order to be delivered later to the homeless people.

My objectives with this activity are, develop areas of growth (1), develop new skills and undertake new challenges (2), help the association every Sunday (4), work collaboratively with others (5) and help decreasing the number of homeless people without food (6).

I will spend 70 hours in this activity (service).

The learning outcomes of this activity are:

       1.    Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth;

       2.    Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process;

4.    Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences;

5.    Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively;  

6.    Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.

So far I have already faced some difficulties such as cutting the vegetables and the skin of the fruit, because many times I cut myself.

Soon I will publish some more intermediate reports.

In this image you can see me cutting tomatoes.