15 Ways to Facilitate Human Connection at EHS

15 Ways to Facilitate Human Connection at EHS

Ms. Christians’ Honors Sophomores are reading The Catcher in The Rye, and much of their discussion about Holden has centered around Holden’s lack of human connection.  These discussions got them thinking about human connections in their own lives.  After watching a TED talk by Ivan Cash, a man who designed his own projects to bring strangers together, they were inspired to facilitate human connection within the walls of EHS.  Read on to find out more about their efforts!

1. This or That: EHS Edition by Cadence Cirillo 

One way to facilitate connection among peers is through “This or That?” questions, where people can vote between two options, with decisions ranging from choosing between Alaska and Hawaii to choosing between Kindergarten and Senior Year. The absence of a middle-ground option can lead to intriguing conversations, which could even cause the creation of new prompts. “This or That?” prompts can be shared in many different ways, including through school or club social media pages, posters around work/school, polls on teachers’ whiteboards, and more. At EHS, it came in the form of a poster with tally marks. Included was an envelope where those who cast their vote could write their own “This or That?” questions.  Although it was difficult to think of ideas at first, the envelope included suggestions like choosing between favorite desserts and even NBA players, highlighting that with more minds comes more ideas. The most beneficial aspect of “This or That?” is the way it can be customized to fit the environment it's in, making it a great option to connect people through topics that are relevant to themselves and the people around them, as opposed to generic “Would you rather…?” prompts. If this project were extended, the poster could have traveled from classroom to classroom with more people adding their ideas to the mix, and eventually to their own poster, making connections with people over shared—or opposed—ideas. (And let’s be honest, Alaska is far better than Hawaii, too many tourists - 9 to 10 million each year!)

2. An EHS Story by Isabelle Ernst, Eli Cross, Lugy Bergin, Sophie Pacelli, and Jasmine Winham 

For our Human Connection project, we created a story using the creativity of various students at EHS. This was done by passing a lined piece of paper around the room, allowing each participant to write a few words, and improvising on the previous details that other peers had written. The disorganization of how sentences were strung together reflected the slight chaos of students, but also how difficult it can be when you don’t communicate with people you work together with. We came up with this idea after watching Ivan Cash’s TED Talk, “The Art of Human Connection”, in which he explains several projects designed to bring strangers together and facilitate human connection. Although all of the projects he spoke about were brilliant, one that caught the eye of our group was The Letter Project, in which thousands of volunteers sent out nearly 40,000 handwritten letters around the world, for absolutely no cost to the sender. Although our project does not really connect to letters, we realized the profound impact writing can have on others, and after some brainstorming, the idea began to come to life. We looked deeper into this and found that extensive and diverse research revealed that writing increases mental capacities such as memory, critical thinking, creativity, verbal skills, and overall health. Implementing the ideas was fairly simple, and for most of the story, we had an immersive sci-fi story going, revolving around the main character and their vegetarian friend who was hiding from aliens underground. It took a turn when some students started talking about online jokes, but did a great job of exhibiting the personalities of our peers, and how we all fit together. 

3. Geocache in EHS by Mackenzie Clark, Colin Stewart and Kaya Miskinis  

To facilitate human connection, we decided to plant a geocache. With one group member who has always liked to geocache, we decided it’s a fun activity to do with other people. There are also logbooks to write your name in and to see when other people have found it, too. Getting the supplies for this geocache proved far more social than we thought, consisting of going to multiple classrooms and asking teachers for candy. This geocache is still ongoing if you would like to participate. The clue to find it is this: I hold words from A to Z, look me up and you’ll find me. In Ms. C’s room, I’m easy to see, your treasure lies next to me. We have filled it with candy, and the rule of a geocache is that if you take something, you leave something. If you find it, feel free to write your name and the date on the piece of paper provided. If you liked this geocache and want to find more and foster human connections, there are plenty of geocaches in the woods around us, so download a geocaching app and go looking with your friends. 

4. Drawing Connections by Abi Herrick, Lillian Kelley, and Emery Lacasse 

Whiteboards at EHS have always been used by students as an outlet to express themselves through silly drawings. We noticed this, and decided that for this project they would connect the student body through art. Using four prompts, including “Create An Original Snowflake,” “Draw Your Own Alien,” “Add to the Winter Wonderland,” and “Draw Something That Lives Under the Sea” we hoped to connect students anonymously by drawing based on a thematic suggestion and allowing participants to add to one another's ideas. From Wednesday, December 11th, to Thursday, December 12th, the posters hung in each of the commons. After these two days, we noticed that the posters hadn’t gotten a ton of additions and attention, and were relocated to Ms. Christians' classroom. After the posters were moved, the amount of art skyrocketed. Through the process of this project, rejection became a huge element, because though most students saw the posters, not many participated. We came to the conclusion that the relocation of the posters contributed to the amount of participation because of the privacy of a classroom, and it creates less public attention, allowing students to truly express their creative freedom.

5. The Controversial Blue or Black Dress as a Conversation Starter by Lexi Paterna, Bri Paterna, Evelyn Knab, Izzie Bremer, and Payton Strandberg

To facilitate connection at EHS, we considered the following question: What are some of the things that hinder human connection? Inspired by the debates online in 2015 and additional visual brain teasers that always stump us, we aimed to accomplish a consensus over how our fellow Blue Hawks perceived “the dress.”  Have you ever seen “the dress”—the one that inspired disagreement about whether it was black and blue or white and gold? This phenomenon challenged our understanding of color. Up until the year 2015, scientists thought they knew how color vision functioned, however, “the dress” tangled this idea. Reasons aside, there was a burning question we wanted to ask our fellow peers and administration at Exeter High School: Do you perceive “the dress” as blue and black or white and gold? 

 Sophomores, teachers, and administration participated in our Google Form that allowed individuals to select blue and black or white and gold as the color of “the dress.” Fiery disagreements smiles, laughs, and cheers when agreements surface. We loved interacting and listening to the debates! Our goal was to minimize the hindrances of the lack of connection in our society consumed by social media and turn some of these hindrances into opportunities—opportunities for connecting, bonding, and relationships to spark! Our results were: 43.8% gold and white, while 56.3% blue and black. To support this conclusion, science has confirmed that the countless perceptions of “the dress” are directly correlated to people’s perception of lighting. When placed on a neutral background, “the dress” is revealed as blue and black. Just ask the girl who initially posted “the dress” online! 

So maybe our disagreements can spur something positive. Connection! Well, what do you see? Is “the dress” blue and black or gold and white? No matter your perception of “the dress,” maybe this discussion over how people perceive “the dress” can make your day just a tiny bit better. 

6. What does your water bottle say about you? by Gianna Gambardello, Nathan Cooper, Anneka Ross and Noella Flaherty  

We went out to interview students and staff at EHS about their water bottles, seeing it as an opportunity to bring people together on their opinions on their water bottles, and what this may imply about them. Here’s direct evidence on what some candidates said during their interviews. . .

Mrs. Peterson, staff at EHS, has an Owala from Walmart; “It’s pretty beat up but I’m staying loyal to the bottle by keeping it. My six year old picked it out for me.” What we gathered from this was she is close with her child, as she was willing to consider the opinion of her son.

Mr. Kies has a simple plastic water bottle, “I don’t care about what water bottle I have, I’m just practical.” He values the basic function of drinking water and always has one during class. 

Another teacher interviewed was Mr. Magz. He dislikes that people buy multiple water bottles because.. “People are buying multiple bottles instead of buying one to reduce waste.” Showing that Mr. Magz values our environment.

After using water bottles for the human connections project, we concluded people use water bottles without realizing how much their water bottles tell about themselves; while water bottles seem like a simple object, they tell much more about a person than we’d expect.

7. Kindness Kickstart by Sarah Page, Mo Furbush and Callum Bishop

Kindness Kickstart is a simple idea of asking someone "What have you or someone else done this week to make someone’s day better?” This is a unique way to connect with others and is a fun way to get ideas for small and easy ways to make somebody’s day better. We got this idea from the action of throwing something out into public for society to interact with, and see where it can go from there. This was done anonymously where a person would write their answer on a sticky note and place it into a box that had the prompt written on it. While some people didn't participate or put things that didn’t exactly start kindness, there were an abundance of positive ways that someone could kickstart kindness. Some key examples were paying for somebody behind them in line, giving someone a high five, making someone laugh and truly listening to others. These small things can change a person's mindset for the better and should be done because they are so small and such an easy way to make someone feel better about themselves. 

8. Connections through Food by Akshaj Penumatsa and Kenji Chase

Food not only is it a necessity of life, but it brings people together through meals and gatherings. It brings people close together sparking conversation, forming bonds, and empowering connections. To facilitate human connection, we decided to make a list of students' and teachers' favorite foods across EHS. We would go around in the halls, library and lunch room asking other students and some teachers what their favorite food is. Through asking this very simple question, it gave the students and teachers some excitement in their day and allowed us to engage in a fun conversation. Although it was a little awkward in the beginning, it got way easier as we went along with the activity, and through doing it yourself, you can increase your social skills and social engagement throughout the school. In order to do better we think that we could have definitely reached a larger audience, maybe by asking more teachers and older students as well as more people who we are unfamiliar with. This activity can provide opportunities of engagement and converse between students, allowing them and the school as a whole to develop connections, just through a simple question.  See the results of our mission below:

Favorite Foods:

• Sushi 2x

• Chicken Tikka Masala

• Shrimp Pasta

• French Fries

• Baked Mac and Cheese 2x

• Pizza 2x

• Shepards Pie 2x

• Pasta with Pesto

• Strawberries

• Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

• Burrito

• Pasta

• Chicken

• Watermelon

• Greek Salad

• Chicken Parmesan

• Onion Soup

• Salad

• Teriyaki Chicken

• Burger

• Curry

• Steak 3x

• Subs

9. Favorite Animal or Pet as a Conversation Starter by Luke Sherman and Xander Renzi 

We took some time to brainstorm early in the week, and came up with one thing that just about everyone can bond over: animals. Around 66% of Americans currently own a pet, and a study by the RSPCA reported that around 70% of people describe themselves as Animal Lovers. Given that information, the one way we found that could spark human connection at Exeter High School is by asking students if they either have a favorite animal or have a pet. Animals are one of the most common things humans can bond over, and maybe a passion for something that just about everyone has. Over the course of the week, we asked some of our peers, and even strangers if they either had a favorite animal, or had a pet. Our research, taken throughout the halls of Exeter High School showed that 7 out of 10 of students own pets, and around 9 out of 10 of students have a favorite animal. Overall, we found that our prediction was correct. Animals can very much bring our EHS community together, and can even start a conversation in most situations, whether it's in a classroom, lunchroom, or even in the halls. 

10. What do your shoes say about you? by Amalia Gloss and Stella Iacobucci 

We decided to survey our peers asking them, “What Your Shoes Say About You?” We came up with the idea by thinking about what people value about how they look. We went through many different ideas like hairstyles, backpacks, and jewelry but the one we thought everyone could relate to would be shoes. Everyone wears shoes to school; and, usually, it is based on personal preference and the style they like. We thought about how we can connect people through shoes, so we came up with the idea of what your shoes say about you. People will see a picture of the previous person’s shoes and will get to make a guess about their personality or what they are like based on their shoes. It is a fun way to connect people in a way that you maybe don’t usually connect. The experience of this was pretty fun, getting to talk to new people and learn their personality was fun. We felt that people did get connected even if they didn’t know the person. Some takeaways that we got was that it is really easy to connect with people and it doesn’t always have to be on a deeper level. Even if you don’t know the other person you can still relate to them. 

11. Connections through a Personality Test: What animal are you? by Nina Mampilly, Lindsey Krauss, Alyssa Hill, Jojo Sheppela and Aidan Carter 

We set out to connect students at EHS by using a personality test that grouped them into 4 different animals: Lion, Otter, Golden Retriever or Beaver. The goal was to pair like-minded individuals into email groups, where they could explore their shared traits. We chose a personality test because many people are curious about how they fit into categories and enjoy discovering connections with others who share similar traits. By grouping Lions (leaders), Otters(enthusiasts), Golden Retrievers(loyal) or Beavers(organized), we hoped to start conversations and create a sense of belonging. We decided to connect students by email groups and encouraged them to answer questions and communicate with one another. However, this wasn’t entirely successful, as very few participants responded to their emails. One of the biggest challenges we faced was participation, with 15 students taking the test and very few responding to their follow-up emails, our engagement was low. Another question we considered was, whether or not categorizing students into 4 basic groups was the best way to foster connection. While some people may have enjoyed learning and connecting with others who share similar personality types, some people may have felt that the categories oversimplified the complex individuals they were. However, even with our small sample size, some of the participants were excited to learn about how they fit into these groups. This shows us that even on a small scale, this had the potential to spark connections. With more participation and time, we believe that the email groups could have been a fun and effective way to bring people together. For anyone interested, we encourage you to try the personality test yourself, and even discuss it with your friends! We hope that this reflection encourages more students to explore how their personality types have aligned with their experiences and relationships and, by doing so, foster a greater sense of community at EHS.

12. Favorite Ice Cream as a Conversation Starter by Amelia Bonafede, Bella Cutler and Aubrey Roy 

The action Bella, Aubrey, and I decided to take was to go around and ask the students/staff of EHS what ice cream flavor they would never stop loving. We asked people if they would like to fill out a survey and all wanted to participate. This gave us a wide variety of data from different people and personalities. We came up with the question because it is straightforward and open-ended; and therefore, it can spark up a conversation. We learned from the International Dairy Foods Association before our project that 97% of Americans love ice cream; however, their preferred flavors vary extremely. Therefore we used this as a prompt because we knew everybody could answer. So how is asking a simple question going to facilitate a connection that is memorable and important? This facilitated connections by allowing us to talk to people we normally wouldn’t consider making an effort to talk to. With this, we learned something interesting about them but also learned how easy it is to begin random conversations with strangers. We went around and asked 60 random students/teachers to fill out a survey to determine which flavor they loved. After this experiment, we all realized that the responses were extraordinarily different and the top choice was Cookies and Cream. We encourage you to stop and ask someone a question as simple and random as what is their favorite flavor of ice cream, just to prove to yourself that it is that easy to have simple yet meaningful connections with strangers. 

13. Get to Know You Questionnaire by Jason Perry  

In order to facilitate connection both here in Exeter High School and outside, I came up with a page of get-to-know-you questions, intending to, well, help people get to know each other better. I came up with the idea because of all the awkward conversations that I've had with people who I know, yet don't know very well. These questions not only allow for getting to know each other but also are fun and easy to elaborate on, letting completely new conversations be formed because of them. Each question asked was designed with a specific purpose: question #1 encourages risk-taking and desire for further exploration; question #2 explores through processing and reasoning; question #3 shows values in a relationship, specifically how one perceives friendship; and question #4 reveals passion and interests.

I found after asking these questions to both people that I know well and to people that I don't know well, that the questions were effective in letting me know the person a bit better, whether their relationships or passions, as long as they were fully invested in the process and truly thought out their answers. If I were to do this again and make new questions, I would add more, focusing on more aspects of people, as well as making them more specific, allowing for more creative answers.

14. Spotify Wrapped Connections by Ben Smith, Darren Grant, and Jack Blyth

We facilitated connections in our school by running a survey that asked participants about their top three artists on Spotify Wrapped from 2024. If anybody did not have Spotify, they were asked to simply list their top three most listened-to, or favorite artists from the last year. After collecting the data, we would match each person up with one other person with a similar music taste, which would be someone that they should be friends with. We came up with this idea after seeing our own Spotify Wrapped and wondering how cool it would be to get a “music soulmate” each year. A lot of students had similar favorite artists; the most popular artist featured in responders’ top threes was Drake, followed by Travis Scott and Zach Bryan. Overall, it was fascinating to see how completely different people can have such similar music tastes, and how a simple attribute such as favored music can connect us with others throughout our school. 

15. EHS Playlist by Tommy Graves, Dennis Dragomaretski, and Max Henry 

Our group of three students got 83 people to contribute to our project, “What is the last song you listened to?” The goal was to connect people through music, and now anyone can listen to different tastes of music through the QR code below, as well as add their own songs that they have recently listened to. We walked throughout our school together and asked people what they had heard. We came up with the idea when we were listening to music and figured we could connect with others through their music preferences. When we did a bit of digging through the features of music we found that many people talk about music when first meeting another person, and also that music can resemble part of one's identity. We modeled our project after short videos on the internet where random people were asked what they were listening to. Once the project was implemented, we found that many were willing to show their last song listened to, while some were embarrassed by their song and decided to tell us the previous song instead of their current one. We also found that many were currently listening to music at the time of our questioning. Overall, most people seemed excited to share their taste in music, and that helped create a connection between our group and the person we asked, even if it was a small one.