School of Pharmacy students in Amarillo and Abilene participated in hands-on exercises to encourage teamwork in the upcoming school year Aug. 9 at their respective campuses.

The exercises focused on team building and communication. Students were divided into groups and were challenged to build the highest structures using Legos and a deck of cards. For the final exercise, the student teams assembled bicycles for charity. By the end of the day, the Amarillo students put together eight bicycles.

“We were broken up into groups to use our communication skills and teambuilding skills to learn how to collaborate and work together,” firstyear (P1) pharmacy student Kingsley Ugoji explained.

Assistant professor Kenna Payne said the students learn valuable lessons from such simple tasks.

“They had to problem-solve and decide what’s already been performed and what hasn’t been during these tasks,” Payne said. “While doing these projects we can do service; service to the community is very important and we want to give back.”

The students will hand-deliver the bicycles to two local charities of their choice before the end of the semester.

Three days later, on Aug. 12, more than 100 Amarillo P1 and P2 pharmacy students received some back-to-school clinical training in preparation for the new semester. The hands-on training was related to providing patient testing procedures for blood pressure, glucose and immunizations.