Ground Team Initiatives

Trust Fall

Maximize your students’ problem-solving and decision-making skills with this series of physical and mental challenges, and gain both personal and team insights through intensive teamwork.

Overview

Teams are led through a series of activity stations: each takes 15 - 30 minutes including a discussion about how to maximize individual involvement, plan effectively, and which leadership and participation roles work best.

Some of our most popular team challenges are:

The Spider Web: The whole team must get through a human-sized vertical web without touching any strands and using each hole only once. This challenge requires a great deal of trust and start-to-finish planning to be successful.

Line-up Beam: Participants are lined up on two long beams and attempt to reverse order without falling off. A coordinated team effort and communication skills are required to manage the task.

All Aboard: Three platforms of varying size are placed on the ground. The whole team must stand on the platform for ten seconds. This challenge requires close contact and problem-solving skills as the platforms get smaller.

Agenda:

We begin by introducing the classroom’s Full Value Contract. If one has not been established, we will stress the following values: 1)Listen to the Instructor; 2)Keep everyone safe; 3)Work together for a common goal; 4)Respect different strengths and weaknesses; 5)Everyone deserves to have fun. Everyone will sign the contract. We will revisit the values throughout the activities and talk about consequences.

Students reconvene to highlight any learnings and take-aways from their experiences during the Team Performance Challenges. The facilitator leads them through a final discussion about how these new experiences will shape the way the team interacts in the future.

You’ll be surprised at how well your students CAN work together!