Time capsules help students value history

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/05/2020 (2106 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Years from now, students will remember 2020 by the toilet paper rolls, dog selfies, and handwritten self-reflections they buried in their backyards during a pandemic.

COVID-19 time capsules are a new trend among teachers looking to keep students engaged from afar.

The assignments require students to be critical thinkers and make connections, at the same time as they reflect on an unprecedented period of distance learning in their early lives.

“We learn about the gold rush and the Great Depression and all of (the First and Second World Wars) in social studies,” said Christine Bumstead, recalling how she virtually introduced the project to her class at Morden Middle School.

“One day, we’re going to be learning about what we’re living right now.”

Bumstead, a Grade 6 teacher, said the time capsule project has forced the 11- and 12-year-olds who think of history as irrelevant “olden days” to reconsider.

In recent weeks, her students have been collecting news article clippings, graphing classmates’ physical-distancing activities and writing letters about 2020 to their future selves. Among the other objects they’ve selected for the capsules: painted rocks, new TV show reviews, empty toilet paper rolls and flour bags.

In Bumstead’s box, there’s a class photo, a playlist of her students’ favourite songs and a decorated toilet paper roll.

Both she and her students are expected to retrieve their capsules in five years. One student has set an alarm on his iPad for 2025.

In other digital classrooms across the province, students have been keen on collecting personal artwork, journal entries and photos of both their pets and baking recipes as 2020 artifacts.

“Pets are really a big coping piece, right now. We always have visitors on our online (Microsoft) Teams,” said Alison Ward, who has, with help from her colleagues at Frontenac School in Windsor Park, assigned nearly 100 grade 3-4 students with the project.

Ward said the exercise requires students to practise writing and researching skills, as much as it requires them to reflect on the positives of the current situation.

Michelle Shewchuk, a teacher at Ecole St. Avila, echoed those thoughts Wednesday.

“Many of them are becoming more independent learners or are trying to figure it out independently, and that was my goal,” said Shewchuk, adding the grade 3-4 class capsule reflections have brought her to tears.

Both students and their parents at the Fort Richmond neighbourhood school in Winnipeg have been writing letters about their time at home, from online Easter dinner to social-distancing Ramadan celebrations.

— Maggie Macintosh