The Nevada Association of IB World Schools (NAIBWS) hosted it’s 5th annual IB Student Leadership Conference on November 6th, 2021, where students from all over the state joined together virtually to learn more about themselves, get to know others, and most importantly have fun. This conference is entirely run and planned by the NAIBWS Student Leadership Board. This year’s topic was ‘Inspiring Innovation’ and students participated in various activities to inspire them to figure out how they plan to change the world!

Students first participated in a morning activity where they created vision boards about how they view their own future, as well as the future of the world and society. Students brought up topics such as gender, racial, and ethnic equality, climate change, mental health, and future careers. Then students shared these vision boards where they dug deeper into how they were going to help to contribute to these visions and what innovations they would need to do so. 

After a short break, students participated in an innovation themed Escape Room entitled “Escape the Maze” which included activities such as guessing famous innovators, coming up with your own adaptive solution to a proposed problem, and playing 20 questions to guess and innovation. This was the first time the organization implemented an activity like this and it proved to be not only engaging, but eye-opening and educational.

As lunch concluded, students began to go to their afternoon sessions, targeted toward High School MYP and DP students. Here they had the option to attend sessions about stress and time management, adaptive leadership, extended essays, TOK, CAS, an alumni panel, and more! Every year, these sessions are an amazing opportunity for students to learn more about IB and be supported individually with any questions they may have. 

Their 4th and 5th annual conferences have been conducted virtually in order to abide by COVID-19 guidelines as well as open up the doors for students form all over Nevada to attend. If you are an IB student interested in participating in this enriching event, make sure to ask your IB Coordinator or IB Council President about how you can get involved!

The association also took part in CNN’s Call to Earth Day taking place on November 10th, as they get IB high schools to participate in their own school-wide service event to help the environment. As an association, they held a trail clean-up on this day so they too can take action, as the time for talking about environmental issues is over.