The days of the current Panther Lake Elementary School may be numbered, but the staff and students at the school this past week tried to seal up the current moment in time for students 25 years from now to explore.
A time capsule, loaded with mementoes and images from 2009, was sealed June 17 and prepared for its move to the new building, where it will sit for 25 years.
“They’re going to see a lot of things are different, but they’ll see a lot of things are pretty much the same,” said Assistant Principal Pat Regnart as the school-wide assembly began.
Case in point, one of the first items put into the capsule was a controller to a game system that plugs into a television. The game? Ms. Pac-Man, which was a hit in arcades about 25 years ago.
According to Principal Beth Wallen, the idea for a time capsule as part of the school’s “closing activities” came from second-grade teacher Lynn Thompson. Each class in the school brainstormed ideas fo what to put in the capsule, reflecting what is happening today at the school, the region and the world.
During the assembly, representatives from each class lined up and announced to their schoolmates what their class had chosen to seal up.
The items ranged from the personal (letters one class wrote to their future selves) to items representing the year at the school (a copy of this year’s school musical, a banner signed by the track team, a volleyball signed by the squad and a collection of lunch menus, as well as a yearbook) to the region (a Mariners lunch box and list of state and local elected officials) to items that represented the world at large (fashion magazines, laminated newspaper pages depicting President Barack Obama’s inauguration and a copy of the last issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer).
One class included a laptop computer and another donated a Blackberry, a cell phone and a digital camera (all non-working) so students in the future could see how technology had changed over the years.
One class even included a series of predictions about what the world would be like when the chest was finally opened.
After each class placed their item into the large chest that served as the time capsule, members of the school’s student government moved into position.
“This lid is about to be closed and won’t be opened for another 25 years,” Regnart said.
Finally, student body President Gina Koopmans stepped up and sealed up the capsule before she rolled it to the school’s library with the help of Vice-President Valerie Goliff and Secretary Michael Nguyen. It will sit in the library until it is moved to the third floor of the new building.
So what do the kids think the world – and Kent – will be like in 25 years?
“I think it will be, like, really different,” Koopmans, 12, said. “It has to change a lot.”
“Maybe more people, more technology, more things,” added Nguyen, 10.
Goliff said working on the time capsule gave her an appreciation of how great Panther Lake Elementary is.
“Panther Lake is such a great place because there’s the nicest people here and they help us learn a lot,” she said.
“It really is a great school,” agreed Koopmans.
According to Wallen, part of the plan for closing the school, which has stood in some version of its current form since 1938 and has been a school for a total of 103 years, was to show that Panther Lake is made up of people, not the structure.
“It’s just really important to us that they realize we’ve always been more than just a building,” she said.
Among the other closing activities planned for the final days at Panther Lake will be the opportunity for each student to ring a turn-of-the-century school bell on their way out of the old school.
So what does Wallen think the world will be like in 25 years?
“I think Kent will be more diverse than ever and better than ever because of the diversity,” she said. “I think the world will be a better place – I do – because of these kids.”
For a look at the new Panther Lake Elementary being completed, visit the webcam at http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/ksd/fp/pl/pl_webcam.html (the webcam only works with the Internet Explorer browser).
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