- What Makes a Good CAS Experience?
- Do the Rules Differ for the Class of 2027, 2028 or 2029?
- CAS Creativity Ideas (15)
- CAS Activity Ideas (12)
- CAS Service Ideas (15), Including Easy Ones to Start
- CAS Expeditions and Trips: 8 Ideas and How They Count
- Turning an Idea Into a CAS Project
- How to Choose CAS Experiences You Can Sustain
- Common CAS Experience Mistakes
Quick Answer
Good CAS ideas build on something you enjoy, run regularly, and give you real challenge to reflect on. Creativity means making or performing something, activity means physical exertion, and service means unpaid work that meets a real need. A CAS expedition counts too, as activity, and as service only if the need is authentic. Below are 50 ideas, each with the reason it works.
What You'll Learn
- A CAS experience must fit a strand, build on your interests or growth, and be separate from your Diploma coursework.
- Ongoing experiences usually give you more to reflect on than one-off events.
- Service must be unpaid and respond to a real, agreed need.
- 'CAS expedition' is not an IB term. A trip counts under the normal rules for each strand.
- The rules are the same for the classes of 2027, 2028 and 2029.
What Makes a Good CAS Experience?
The IB's CAS guide sets four tests for any CAS experience. It must fit within one or more of the strands, be based on a personal interest, skill, talent or opportunity for growth, give you chances to develop IB learner profile attributes, and not be part of your Diploma course requirements. Beyond those tests, the strongest experiences are ones you can keep going, that stretch you, and that leave you with something specific to reflect on. The guide also suggests asking yourself a few questions: will it be enjoyable, what new challenge does it offer, what are the consequences for other people and the environment, and which learning outcomes could it address?
Pro Tip
If you would still want to do the experience without CAS, that is usually a good sign it is authentic.
Do the Rules Differ for the Class of 2027, 2028 or 2029?
No. All three cohorts, including the class of 2029 who start in August 2027, follow the same CAS guide, first used for students graduating in 2017. In March 2025 the IB said a new CAS curriculum has been delayed until 2030, so nothing changes for current students: the same three strands, the same seven learning outcomes, at least one CAS project and at least 18 months of CAS, with no hours requirement. Your school may still set its own deadlines or minimums, so check your CAS handbook.
CAS Creativity Ideas (15)
Creativity in CAS means exploring and extending ideas that lead to an original or interpretive product or performance. It covers far more than art: digital design, writing, film, cooking, crafts and composition all count. Appreciating someone else's work, such as attending a concert, does not. If you are already strong in one area, set yourself a new challenge within it.
- Learn a difficult new piece, or a new style, on an instrument you already play: the IB itself uses this as an example of extending an existing skill, and progress is easy to show.
- Write and record an original song or short composition: you produce something original, and your drafts show how it developed.
- Shoot a photography series on one theme over a term: a sustained project with a visible end product and natural points to reflect.
- Write a collection of short stories or poems: individual creativity that builds over time. Set a target and share the collection at the end.
- Design posters and social media content for a charity campaign: creativity that meets a real need, so it can also link to service.
- Produce a school podcast or video series: planning, interviewing and editing give you evidence of initiative and collaboration.
- Edit or relaunch a student magazine or newsletter: an ongoing team role with real deadlines and real readers.
- Direct, act in or build sets for a school or community production: rehearsals give you regular engagement and plenty of teamwork evidence.
- Choreograph an original dance piece: creativity combined with physical exertion, so it can cover two strands.
- Learn to cook a new cuisine and host a tasting event: the guide lists culinary arts as creativity, and the event gives you a demonstration stage.
- Build a website or app for a club or small charity: digital design with a real user, so feedback shapes what you make.
- Paint a mural with a group for a school or community space: one of the guide's own CAS project examples.
- Write and illustrate picture books for younger learners: creativity with a clear audience, which can also count as indirect service.
- Join a community theatre group, choir or art class: community-based creativity that builds relationships beyond school.
- Design furniture, clothing or crafts from recycled materials: practical creativity with a sustainability angle for learning outcome 6.
CAS Activity Ideas (12)
Activity means physical exertion contributing to a healthy lifestyle, at a level that genuinely challenges you. It does not have to be competitive or sports-based. Regular engagement with a goal works better than one-off events, because progress and setbacks give you something real to reflect on.
- Train for a set running, swimming or cycling distance: a measurable goal makes progress and perseverance easy to show.
- Play a full season with a school or club team: regular commitment with teamwork built in.
- Take up a sport you have never tried: a clear new challenge for learning outcome 2.
- Learn a martial art, yoga or climbing: skills develop in visible steps, and the IB gives overcoming a fear through rock climbing as an example.
- Design and follow your own fitness programme: shows planning, and the guide notes that individual activity works best over an extended period.
- Join a dance class or crew: physical exertion with a performance to work towards.
- Start a lunchtime sports club for other students: activity plus initiative and leadership.
- Take up rowing, kayaking or sailing: outdoor recreation with new skills and safety rules to learn.
- Start a walk to school group for younger pupils: regular, easy to sustain, and an idea the guide itself suggests.
- Train for a trekking expedition: the weeks of training are an ongoing activity experience in their own right.
- Organise a sports tournament for the local community: the guide's own example of activity combined with service.
- Rebuild fitness after an injury with a structured plan agreed with a professional: honest reflection on setbacks is strong evidence of commitment and perseverance.
CAS Service Ideas (15), Including Easy Ones to Start
Service means collaborative and reciprocal engagement with the community in response to an authentic need. It is unpaid, and the community should benefit as much as you do. The guide describes four types of service and recommends trying more than one: direct service (working with people, animals or the environment), indirect service (work that benefits others without direct contact), advocacy (speaking up for a cause) and research (collecting and reporting information to influence policy or practice). The first five ideas below are easy to start this week.
- Easy start: tutor or mentor younger students at your school. Direct service with a need your teachers can confirm.
- Easy start: take a regular shift at a food bank. The need already exists, and staff can supervise you.
- Easy start: run a reading club for younger pupils. Regular, low cost and full of moments worth reflecting on.
- Easy start: volunteer at an animal shelter. The guide uses this as an example of direct service.
- Easy start: run a collection drive after asking a charity what it actually needs. Checking the need first is what makes it service.
- Visit a care home regularly to talk, play games or run activities: the guide prefers regular visits that build relationships over single visits.
- Teach basic digital skills to older people at a library or community centre: uses a skill you already have to meet a real gap.
- Offer language practice to newly arrived families through a local organisation: direct service that builds intercultural understanding.
- Redesign a small charity's website or social media: indirect service, where you may never meet the people who benefit.
- Grow tree seedlings or native plants for a local planting scheme: indirect service, and another example from the guide.
- Run an awareness campaign on an issue such as food waste or bullying: advocacy that connects to learning outcome 6.
- Survey energy use or litter at school and present the results to the leadership team: research service aimed at changing practice.
- Record the oral histories of older residents and make a booklet for their families: suggested in the guide, and it combines creativity and service.
- Fundraise for a charity after learning about its work: the guide asks you to understand the organisation first and to be accountable for the money raised.
- Coach a junior sports team: service that uses your activity skills, with a weekly commitment.
Watch Out
Avoid service chosen for your CV rather than for a real need. The guide says service should be respectful and reciprocal, and it recommends serving locally before looking abroad.
CAS Expeditions and Trips: 8 Ideas and How They Count
'CAS expedition' is a phrase schools and travel companies use, not an IB requirement. The CAS guide never uses the word. An expedition counts under the same rules as anything else: physical exertion counts as activity, making or performing something counts as creativity, and work that meets an authentic, agreed community need counts as service. If your group plans it together over at least a month, it can also be your CAS project. The guide also asks schools to check that any commercial provider acts in line with the IB mission and CAS requirements, and to carry out a risk assessment.
- A multi-day trek or hike with a training plan: activity with a clear goal, and the training weeks give you ongoing evidence.
- An award-scheme expedition, such as the Duke of Edinburgh's Award: activity and teamwork. Check with your coordinator that it meets the CAS guidelines.
- A sailing, kayaking or cycling journey: activity with real skills, safety planning and teamwork.
- A conservation trip working on a project run by local experts: can count as service if the need is genuine and your work is useful, not just a tour.
- An international service trip with a long-term partner of your school: stronger when the need is verified and the school keeps the relationship going.
- A local expedition with a service element, such as a coastal walk combined with a beach clean: activity and service close to home, in line with the guide's preference for local service.
- A cultural or arts trip where you create something, such as a photo exhibition when you return: creativity counts when you produce work, not when you only look.
- Planning the expedition as a group: sharing the route, budget, fundraising and risk assessment over more than a month can turn the trip into your CAS project.
Pro Tip
After a service trip, keep going. The guide recommends some form of continuation, for example researching the issue further, advocating for the community you worked with, or starting related action at home.
Watch Out
A trip that someone else plans and you simply attend still counts as CAS experiences, but it gives you little evidence for learning outcome 3 (initiate and plan). Take on a real planning role if you can.
Turning an Idea Into a CAS Project
Any idea above can grow into your CAS project if you add collaboration, at least a month of planned work and a clear purpose. For example, a student who enjoys running could recruit three classmates and spend two months planning a charity fun run for a local hospice: agreeing the date and route with the school, training a group of beginners, and reviewing what worked afterwards. That one project covers activity and service and gives evidence for several learning outcomes.
- 1Start from an experience you already enjoy.
- 2Find a need or a goal that is bigger than you can manage alone.
- 3Recruit a team and give everyone a real role.
- 4Plan at least a month of connected steps.
- 5Reflect together during the project and after it ends.
How to Choose CAS Experiences You Can Sustain
CAS runs for at least 18 months, ideally with something every week, alongside a demanding IB workload. Students often weaken CAS by taking on too much at once or choosing experiences they cannot maintain. Sustainable experiences usually produce better reflections, because you have time to notice challenge, progress and change.
- 1Choose experiences that fit your real timetable.
- 2Mix experiences you already care about with one or two new challenges.
- 3Set small goals so progress becomes visible.
- 4Document as you go rather than trying to remember later.
- 5Check your overall balance. The IB asks for a reasonable balance between creativity, activity and service, not equal numbers.
Common CAS Experience Mistakes
These problems make CAS harder than it needs to be.
- Choosing activities only because they look impressive.
- Taking on too many experiences at once.
- Counting hours instead of learning. There is no hours requirement.
- Counting things that do not qualify: paid work, watching a performance, or anything that is part of a Diploma course, such as IA fieldwork.
- Leaving documentation until the end.
- Relying on one-off events that give you little to reflect on.