Lorne P-12 College VCAL students’ project of coronavirus time capsule

This group of students want to know what your experiences have been during this coronavirus pandemic and there’s an interesting reason why. Tell them now.

WHAT have been your experiences during this coronavirus pandemic, the good and the bad?

That is the question Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning students at Lorne P-12 College are asking their peers and community for a new project they are working on to help gain their qualification.

And they are hoping to cast the net even wider, beyond the Great Ocean Road town, for “Tales of A Local Lockdown”, or TALL as the project has been dubbed.

The answers will form a time capsule, a record for future generations on how people felt and changed during 2020.

One of the students, 17-year-old Perry Jenkin, described the year as “an interesting ride, to say the least”.

He said when the project was done he hoped that “because we’ve all shared this scary and interesting experience that we become closer as people and a community, and more connected”.

Lorne’s VCAL co-ordinator, Cherie Osta, says the students had planned a trip to Nepal in November as part of their studies, but with that trip off the cards they had to come up with an alternative project.

Team effort: Some of Lorne’s VCAL students, with Lorne Historical Society’s Peter Spring (left) and Cherie Osta (right).

Cherie says there are plenty of anecdotes emerging from the lockdown. They range from more wildlife being seen in the open, to a 95-year-old unable to visit his wife who has Alzheimer's, but would stand out on the footpath waving at her through her window, knowing she would not recognise him.

She says the VCAL class has already spoken to their school peers, as well as kids at the nearby kindergarten. The responses have been written, or as various art forms including drawing and poems.

Just before the school holidays, a website with a survey for participants to fill out was launched.

“The next one is to take it out to the community and to get as many people from the community — organisations, nursing home, police, local supermarket, everyone that we possibly can — to do the same thing,” Cherie says. “The third stage is across Australia.”

Perry says the project is going well despite it being a late switch.

“We were really in the groove of it when school ended (at the end of term two) so we’re getting things sorted where we can,” he says.

At the end of the year, restrictions permitting, the class will hold an exhibition to showcase the responses. They received a grant from Bendigo Bank for the project, and have partnered with the local historical society.

“It’s that celebration of coming together as a community, but also to see how others all over the world have been affected,” Cherie says.

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