By Gabriella Payne
After remote learning and isolation left many Year 12 students feeling a little robbed of their final year at school, missing out on many celebrations and rites of passage due to Covid-19, students and teachers at Killester College hit the drawing board to come up with a new way to commemorate the unprecedented year: an old-fashioned time capsule.
The ‘2020 time capsule’ idea was sparked during the year and at the beginning of term three, when the pandemic was looming in mid-July, Killester College’s Year 11 and 12 VCAL students began organising the project, asking teachers and fellow students from all years to make suggestions as to what to include in the capsule.
A group vote divvied up different items for each year level, with students contributing a range of items including face masks, hand sanitiser, school badges, locks and socks as well as more personal items such as photographs, printouts of memes, lists of Netflix shows watched during lockdown, Black Lives Matter protest information and letters to future selves to name a few.
The teaching staff also contributed to the capsule, adding in a prayer, in keeping with the Catholic school’s faith and beliefs.
The 2020 VCAL leader, Gemma Nicolaci, said that the time capsule had been a fantastic project for both students and staff alike during the tough lockdown period.
“We created a time capsule because we thought it was a great way for the school community to contribute during difficult times and we wanted to make sure that all members of the school community were included and involved,” Ms Nicolaci said.
Mrs Nicole Scott, Killester College’s VET/VCAL coordinator said that “this time capsule project gave us the opportunity to set an integrated curriculum” and that “it also gave our students some control during a time when they had no control”.
The difficult restrictions endured by Melbournians were arguably most difficult for students, particularly this year’s graduating class, but through projects like this, Killester hopes that their Year 12s were able to celebrate in their own special way.
Mrs Scott added that the project helped students band together and gave them a small taste of normality, as “they could control what was going to happen with their time capsule” unlike most things this year.
“Hopefully, it also signifies the end of Covid,” Mrs Scott added.
The time capsule was handed to the school’s principal, Sally Buick, at the Year 12 final assembly recently and will be reopened when the current Year 7s are in Year 12 in six years time, to “remind them of the extraordinary year of 2020”.
Killester College is set to bury the time capsule in the school’s front garden where it can safeguard these memories for years to come.
