The CSP (Collaborative Science Project) exhibition recently put up by IBY1 on April 11, was representative of the idea that "Ultimately, success is a journey and not a destination. The doing is more important than the outcome." The students put together their collaborative skills to present their scientific approaches in the form of a visual art, combining their creative and logical skills to make a significant impact.

Students had the opportunity to integrate their different sciences to address an issue of local significance that manifested itself in a global form. To represent this issue, they were required to create a work of visual art that symbolises the key points regarding the issue, spreading awareness and serving as a visual wake-up call.

Over the course of one month, they collaborated through various group meetings, planning sessions, and talks with their mentors in order to explore many issues including pollution, chemical warfare, mental health, and overfishing, which they creatively depicted through many forms. Models were a common technique students used to put forward their solutions, ranging from innovative displays to working models that depicted that you do not have to be a scientist in a professional lab to be able to come up with adept solutions and provide perspectives on global issues.

Through this journey, the students worked together in many ways that helped them develop their IB learner profiles. In the beginning, students worked together and learnt how to be communicators, proposing solutions with other classmates they may not have worked with before. They moved on to the planning stage, where students used their skills of being thinkers and inquirers to come up with apt solutions to real-world issues. At the end, results of their hard work were seen in an eloquent exhibition as they presented their issues through various fun skits and explanations.

Students were asked to create a group reflection in the form of a journal or video that encouraged them to reflect on their entire collaborative process, and urged them to consider how the journey of cooperation and how you come together to adapt to crisis and put forward your perspective is often just as important as the end result. At the end of the day, the students had gained immense knowledge on issues around them, and learned how to work together in an effective manner.

Jeenal Agarwal

IBDP Year 1