Mission Bay High and Pacific Beach Middle School students speak at conference

Six students representing Mission Bay High and Pacific Beach Middle schools were among those who participated in the inaugural West Coast International Baccalaureate Day

Mission Bay senior Graham Allen; freshmen Ellie Nelson, Brooke Sattler and Helena Leachman; and PBMS eighth graders Emma Steinberger and Catherine Miller were accompanied by PBMS IB Coordinator Ashley Hensen to the conference held on Oct. 28 at the Orange County Department of Education in Costa Mesa.

The Pacific Beach group was featured in presentations that highlighted their campuses’ success in developing and implementing a variety of community service projects. Developing a strong community service ethic is the cornerstone in a school’s successful IB program.

In the Mission Bay Cluster there are three IB schools: Sessions Elementary, Pacific Beach Middle School and Mission Bay High School.

International Baccalaureate, established in 1968 in Geneva, Switzerland, was initially designed for children of expatriates and diplomats seeking a consistent high school level curriculum worldwide that emphasized critical thinking and intercultural understanding. The program gradually gained worldwide recognition for its academic rigor and holistic approach to education.

By the 1980s, the IB expanded to include a middle school level component (known as the Middle Years Programme) and an elementary school component (known as the Primary Years Programme). The IB has since grown to include over 5,000 schools in more than 150 countries.

The program is unique in that students can take IB courses in over 140 countries, making it easy to transfer credits if they move. The high school IB also offers a diploma option to prepare students for university and life success. It is designed to promote critical thinking and inquiring minds and encourages students to think globally.

“October 2025 was a sensationally successful month for the IB program at Pacific Beach Middle School,” Hensen said. “First off we received our five-year recertification accreditation as an IB middle school.

“Second, PBMS was selected as a California IB Middle School Years Programme Spotlight School and invited to present at the Oct. 28 IB Schools Conference … because of our year over year high quality community service projects. Every one of our students participates in a … project at the end of eighth grade.”

The Pacific Beach students spoke about their community service projects to conference attendees.

Steinberger and Miller spoke about the project they are working on that is due in March. Working as a team with fellow eighth graders Esther Owolabi and Marin Busby, they will be presenting a school-wide mental health awareness assembly in January.

“When I was at the conference, I was thinking a lot about my project and how I can find ways to continue it after I leave Pacific Beach Middle School,” Miller said. “Mental health is such an important topic for teens of all ages, because it is what contributes to who you are becoming. It is a reality that many young people face, to be stuck in a position where they are driven to believe who they are becoming is not enough.

“I hope to expand on the support we are giving to students through my own actions, but beyond this I hope our group’s Mental Health Awareness project can become a legacy project that future eighth grade students will take on or continue when I am no longer at Pacific Beach Middle,” Miller said.

Sattler, Leachman and Nelson presented their 2025 eighth grade community service project, Climate Crochet. Their project’s inspiration came from the climatology research and work conducted by Professor Ed Hawkins since 2018 at the University of Reading in Berkshire, England.

The climate crochet tapestry they produced last spring has horizontal colored stripes representing the change in global temperature rise for 115 years — from 1908 to 2023.

“Our larger tapestry shows the average temperature rise in San Diego and the smaller tapestry represents the average temperature rise globally around the entire world,” Leachman said. “The difference in size of the two tapestries are from the different styles of crocheting.”

The third element of the project is a “wooden tapestry” composed of yarn and pieces of paper with statements and pledges that people have made to stopping climate change after they view the Climate Crochet exhibition.

“This experience was very motivating, as speaking both in the panel and individually with various members of the IB program was a great experience and felt like a recognition of our hard work,” Nelson said. “Speaking to and learning from IB educators, and seeing how far our project has come further opened my eyes to future continuations of our project, such as presenting it to more people, places and even organizations. It also encouraged me to pursue more community service projects.”

During the conference Allen described his ongoing project that he started four years ago.

“My eighth grade community service project was called the Surf-Off Series, which is a fundraiser surf contest for all ages,” Allen said. “The first year of the event, I knew I wanted to raise proceeds for Autism Tree, a nonprofit that helps the Autism community. I had volunteered for them quite a bit in the past working with kids on the spectrum to get more comfortable in the ocean.

“I also had a huge love for competitive surfing, and thought I could somehow combine my passion for surfing and volunteering into a single event,” Allen said. “That’s how the Surf-Off Series was born.

“About six months after the initial Surf-Off Series event, I found myself missing the process of organizing the contest and the feeling of being able to be involved in something bigger than myself,” he said. “At this point, I decided I would make it an annual event and would donate to a new nonprofit every year.

“However, after coming into contact with Urban Surf 4 Kids and volunteering a ton with the organization, I fell in love with the program and continued working with them the following three years,” Allen said, recalling his event four years ago involved 10 volunteers and 40 competitors whereas this past summer had 40 volunteers and 165 competitors.

In addition to the panel discussion, the students participated in a video and Allen and Leachman recorded a 45-minute IB Voices podcast.

“IB Voices is the official podcast from the International Baccalaureate, where students, teachers and education experts with a passion for the IB bring aspects of our programmes to life,” Hensen said. “Episodes will energize and inspire your learning and teaching — provide tips and strategies for bringing the IB to life in the classroom — and introduce you to members of our global community.

“Graham, Helena, and I focused on the success and impact of the community project at Pacific Beach Middle School,” she said, adding it aired on Spotify and Apple Podcasts so educators could learn from it.

“My experience at the IB conference in Orange County was a one of a kind moment that I will never forget,” Steinberger said. “Hearing from my peers was also extremely influential and definitely moved me to work as hard as possible on this project. I was greatly motivated by how successful Graham’s project has been and how he has continued to do it for four years.”

Sattler agreed.

“This whole experience was extremely motivating because I was able to see the effects of our project on a large audience,” Sattler said. “It was very encouraging to see this. It was also super inspiring to see how long Graham kept doing his project.

“Finally, this opportunity also showed us how there were so many more places where we could present and educate people on our Climate Crochet community service project,” Sattler said.

Allen said he found IB Day motivating.

“I felt acknowledged for my hard work and I felt like I was surrounded by a community that understands the value of community service and what it takes to implement a community service project,” Allen said. “I am definitely continuing the project for a fifth summer. Even though I will be away at college … I’m even more motivated as a result of all the positive feedback I received from the audience. I even made some potential future connections.”

Hensen also expressed high praise.

“I was incredibly proud of our students,” Hensen said. “To watch them speak so eloquently in front of 200 educators was a highlight of my 22 years as an educator.

“I was not supposed to speak and the moderator called me up after the student panel,” she said. “I was so proud of our students that I was visibly emotional. The good news is that I was in a room with fellow educators and they were right there with me emotionally. One teacher raised her hand and described it as the ‘eutopia’ of an IB middle years program.”