Jackson Gardner & Dylan Godsave | Website Editors

For the past week, freshman students have been visiting the innovation center with their Keystone classes in order to bond with one another and improve their teamwork skills.

“What this program does is it puts them in a team atmosphere where there are people who you may or may not know,” Keystone teacher Deb McClurg said. “When you put a group of people together with different personalities and strengths and abilities, that’s just one of the units that we are trying.”

The students did multiple activities to test their communication skills and see if they could efficiently work together as a team.

“We did a pencil activity where we had to stand up in a circle with the pencils connected on our fingertips and we had to work together to move outside of the door,” freshman Tori Spencer said. “The first time we did it we did not really talk to each other, but we started working together and one person became the leader and we eventually got out.”

Spencer and many of the other freshman who attended the field trip believed they learned valuable skills that will enable them to be better leaders.

“I learned that communicating is not really talking, but it’s also standing and listening to what others have to say,” freshman Trey Snyder said. “We did an activity where we had ten blocks, one for each person, and we had to get to the other side only using the blocks and if we dropped them they broke. We had to communicate and listen to others to make sure that we could get across.”

During the rest of the semester, students in Keystone will work to improve their communication skills, assess their strengths and weaknesses, and also plan out what they will do after high school and what jobs are compatible with their personalities..

“It’s kinda cool because it all ties together,” McClurg said. “Realizing that people are different and we all have to get along.”