Do Your Own Time Travel!

Here’s a cool project for you: make a “time capsule.” You put special things from your life in a container, and bury it for other people to find years later. They get to see the kinds of clothes, money, phones and toys we used, which might look nothing like theirs. Museum experts in Boston found a time capsule buried in the year 1795 that held hexagon-shaped coins. Years from now, our circular pennies might look just as strange!

Wee ones: If you could put 4 of your favorite toys in a time capsule, which ones would they be? Count them up!

Little kids: If you find a time capsule on Tuesday and don’t open it until Friday, on which whole days do you wait? Bonus: It took about 5 hours to unscrew the screws on the Boston time capsule. If they started at 2:00 pm, when did they finally open the box?

Big kids: If a 12-year-old makes a time capsule today and opens it 27 years from now, how old will they be when they open it?  Bonus: When did the 1795 time capsule turn 100 years old?

The sky’s the limit: If you make a time capsule and open it 25 years later, and your age at that point is 6 times the age you were when you made the capsule, how old are you when you open it?

Answers:
Wee ones: Think of your 4 favorite toys: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Little kids: Wednesday and Thursday.  Bonus: At 7:00 pm.

Big kids: They’ll be 39 years old! Bonus: In 1895.

The sky’s the limit: You are 30 years old. If you’re 6 times the original age, that 25 adds 5 times that age, so it’s 5/6 of your final age.

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