Make a TIME CAPSULE
To understand the present it is important to know about the past.
We can do this through documents and what is written in books (personal memoirs as well as great histories), but also through the buildings, landscape and historic artefacts that survive.
How will future generations view the present period if nothing remains?
How will they get a balanced view of our age if the great events of our time are remembered, but the experience of ordinary people living ordinary lives is forgotten?
Each of us has a responsibility to value the objects of our contemporary culture, to help ensure their preservation, and to use them to tell our story.
One way of doing this is by making a time capsule.
...preserve our material culture
Take Action
Make a time capsule.
Include in it some of the things that you think best represent life on earth as it is now - photographs, recordings, CDs and DVDs, articles from newspapers and magazines, predictions about the future, clothing, equipment, objects, seeds, identity documents, whatever.
Produce a guidebook for your collection. Try to explain to someone who might be opening it in 100 or 500 years' time what the objects are, how all the items work, their significance and why you selected them.
Bury your time capsule, but not too deep, in the hope that someone sometime in the distant future will unearth it and discover the secrets of the early 21st century.
The rescue game
Gather a group of friends and ask everybody to imagine that they have been given a ten-minute warning that their house is in imminent danger of being flooded.
Invite everyone to make a list of the ten things they would rescue, and a brief explanation of why they would save it, and what it means to them.
Compare lists. Look for similarities; look for differences; and examine each other's choices, rationales, and histories.
The aim is to give you all a better understand of the meaning of the objects in your world and how they define you.
Find Out More
Around 10,000 people around the world have already made a time capsule so as to preserve their material culture for posterity.
A capsule needs to be airtight and watertight. You can make one yourself, or you can buy one made in lead (costing around £250) or plastic (costing around £50).
International Time Capsule Society (Oglethorpe University, Georgia, USA): www.oglethorpe.edu (then type name of the society into website search engine)
Smithsonian Centre for Materials Research and Education tells you how to make your own time capsule with a contact list of suppliers: www.si.edu/scmre/takingcare/timecaps.htm
The British Library advises on time capsules: www.bl.uk/services/npo/faqtime.html
Ideas for what to put in a time capsule: www.appliedhistory.com/suggest.html
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You probably own a lot of stuff. But which of all your possessions means the most to you?
What are the 10 things that you own that you would like to rescue if you were given a ten-minute warning that your house is about to be flooded?
Make a list - and give your reasons for selecting each item.
Find out why this is important and what else you can do to change the world from www.365act.com
