Taft Middle School students create time capsule to mark school’s 50th anniversary

CEDAR RAPIDS - No one knows for sure what the world will be like 25 years from now, but students at Taft Middle School have had a lot of fun imagining it.

To celebrate the school's 50th anniversary, every student at Taft is involved in creating and collecting materials for a time capsule that will be opened in 2040. At a ceremony on May 7 the school will dedicate the new capsule. They'll also open another capsule that was dedicated for the school's 25th anniversary in 1990.

'For me, part of building school pride is making kids feel a link to both the future and the past of your school and a time capsule is a great way to do that,” said Taft Principal Gary Hatfield.

Every student in the school wrote a letter about themselves and their predictions about the future to be placed the capsule. The letters will be bound into three books - one for each grade.

Small groups of students from each grade are creating three more books. Sixth-graders are researching fashion and pop culture trends from 1990 to now and seventh-graders are collecting major news stories. Eighth-graders are creating a scrap book designed to give the reader a tour of the building as it looks today.

'It's just been really cool knowing people are going to be learning what life was like now,” said Kyle Lassen, a sixth-grader working on the project. 'We think of history as 1800s, 1900s but someday people are going to be looking back at the 2000s, and thinking ‘Wow, life was a lot different then.'”

Working on the time capsule project has been a fun opportunity for them to not only think about the future but also learn about the past.

'Some of the news stories are really surprising because you remember all of them that you forgot and it's just fun to go back,” said Cassidy Boche, a seventh-grader working on gathering news stories from 2010 to now.

Lori Tonsfeldt was a young teacher 25 years ago when the first capsule was dedicated. Her daughter, Jill Anderson, was a student. She is now also a teacher at the school. Anderson said while she was one of the students selected to work on the project it wasn't an all-school affair like it is this time around.

'I think it's going to be more memorable” this time, Anderson says. 'I honestly don't remember contributing much of myself within the capsule but I think having a piece of themselves within the capsule will allow them to feel more connected and feel more a part of the community that has past.

'It's going to be neat to see how I've gone form that novice individual to [now] I am the elder teacher in the building,”

In addition to the six books, school memorabilia such as team jerseys also will be added to the time capsule. Hatfield said they plan to have an item from every activity at Taft.

Students are already musing about coming back in 25 years.

'If we're still here in Iowa, we'll be able to see our letters and our predictions and how different everything is,” said eighth-grader Karlee Colby.