BLOG TO THE FUTURE!

11-14 group -17 attending
15-18 group - 9 attending

In our first session back after half term, we were
continuing with our time travel theme, but this time sending our time
travellers forwards, into the great unknown of the future!

In the younger group, we began by inventing a machine/piece
of technology we would like to see in the future, what it would be used for,
and why it would be useful – here are
some examples:

From Annie:

In the future I would like to see nature containers.Nature
containers are bubbles made out of recycled resources.These are meant to
contain the nature you put it around.This is done through automatically fertilising
the soil and giving the plants/animals everything they need to survive.The
purpose of these are to keep what's left of our environment safe.This will be
useful in the future as nature may not make it through the changes that come.

From George:

The Alcubierre Warp Nacelles hurls spacecraft forwards
through space by contracting space-time in front of the ship and expanding
space-time behind the ship. This is achieved by using long polarised magnets
for each nacelle, which interacts with exotic matter bounced throughout the
nacelle.

Exotic matter at the front of the nacelle is in a positive
electro-magnetic field: this causes it to become denser, to the point
space-time is contracted around it.

Exotic matter at the Rear of the Nacelle is in a negative
electro-magnetic field: this causes it to gain a negative density, which in
turn causes space-time to expand behind it.

Using this method, the spacecraft ‘surfs’ across space-time:
being sucked towards the front of the nacelle and pushed away from the rear of
the nacelle. This effectively allows faster than light travel, while abiding to
the laws of general relativity.

From Jasmine:

in the future, we should have tall towers made of recycled
recourses like plastic or glass which people live in. around the towers are
lots and lots of trees and fields., and instead of cars, people cycle to their destinations or if
their destination is too far away then they can travel by solar-powered car.

In the older group, we did a slightly different warm-up,
looking at some pictures of the Mars landing of the rover, Perseverance, and
listening to ‘Mars’ from Gustav Holst’s ‘The Planets’ suite, as inspiration to
write about space travel!

In both groups, we then looked at some examples of stories
set in the future, from ‘The Maze Runner’ and ‘The Hunger Games’ in the younger
group, to ‘Brave New World’, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, ‘The Road’ and ‘1984’ in the
older group – based on all of our reading, the consensus sadly seemed to be
that most stories set in the future see it all going downhill pretty badly!
However, we thought it was important (and possibly actually more original and
radical, looking at current literature on the subject!) to also think about the
possibilities of imagining the future in a positive way, which Annie certainly
managed in hers:

“I hope that in the future my invention helps people all
over the world.”said Clara as she held the trophy for the science fair
winner.Riley and Clara hugged each other tight as everyone began to leave the
school hall. “I can't believe you won first place!I’m so proud of you.”Riley
exclaimed as they walked through the doors.Later that day,an idea came to
Riley...she remembered her best friends said “I hope my invention helps people
in the future” and started to wonder if her pendant could travel to the
future.Once again she grabbed her pendant and traveled exactly 20 years into the
future.Not soon after,she realized that Clara’s invention was not doing well at
selling and so she devised a plan. “Excuse me sir.My friend has invented
something and I was wondering if you could market her nature containers.” and
started to show him the plans and explained everything he needed to do.After an
hour of convincing,the man finally agreed to the terms.Once again,she traveled
20 years into the future, and was happy to see Clara’s nature containers were
everywhere. “She is going to be so excited to hear...oh yeah I can’t tell her.”
and held her pendant up in the air and came back to the present.

Elsie in the older group also managed a very optimistic piece
about the future, where we do manage to deal with the climate crisis, by
reverting to a simpler lifestyle:

When Connie opened her eyes, she was looking down at her feet. She was still wearing her old worn trainers, but
underneath them she could see grass. Grass that was lusher and brighter than
any she’d ever seen before. She turned and saw that her hand was still in
Heather’s, who was looking off into the distance. Her gentle grey eyes were
full of sunlight, and then closed in sheer bliss, and a dreamy look had come
over her face. She breathed in deeply, as if she wanted to pull the very essence
of this place into her body.

‘This is where you’re from, isn’t it?’ Connie whispered.

Heather opened her eyes to look at her. She turned away from the sun, but the light was still in her eyes. A smile spread
across the whole of her face that held more real feeling, quivering with life,
than any Connie had seen before. She could hardly bear to keep looking,
although it was such a beautiful sight.

Heather nodded quickly.

‘Yes’, she breathed.

It was then that Connie looked out in front of her for the first time. For several moments, she couldn’t breathe. It was
now clear that they were standing on the top of a hill, and the long, glorious
slope of blinding grass in front of them rolled down into a valley. It was
beautiful. Just beautiful. The valley was filled with trees; trees that were
tall and lush and weighed down with green, and among them, sheltered by their
branches, were people. People and cottages – small, pretty houses made of faded
brick with roofs that were thatched or of rose-coloured tiles and ivy and
honeysackle and wild roses running up their fronts, and gardens here and there
in clearings. Behind, there stretched a patchwork of fields, bright and full
with crops, and people working together to tend them. Everywhere, people were
mixing together, tending gardens, doing washing in the stream that cut through
the wood or large basins, exchanging baskets of food. There were countless
dogs, running around everyone’s feet, and children ran and played among the
trees, or out in the fields. It was all too idyllic to be believed.

‘When are we?’ Connie asked her friend.

Heather smiled again.

‘Time doesn’t matter very much here. We got over that obsession’.

‘So the earth…it survived? It’s still
alive? And green?’

Heather raised an eyebrow.

‘Oh yes!’

Then she gasped in understanding.

‘You
thought...climate change? You thought that might be the end? That we wouldn’t
overcome it?’

‘Yes’ Connie admitted. ‘I did.’

She shook her head in disbelief and realised tears were welling up in her eyes.

‘We all sort of did’.

She felt Heather’s hand squeeze hers gently.

‘We
overcame. It wasn’t easy, but we had to’, she explained.

‘You...you reverted back? To this way of
living. Off the land, without technology?’

Heather laughed.

‘Hardly reverted. We still have all your
precious technology. Look!’

She pointed at a woman looking at an i-phone. ‘We just found balance. We reminded ourselves what really matters, and slotted all these things we thought were ‘progress’ just where they were
needed’.

Connie laughed through her tears.

‘But they’re washing their clothes in a stream’.

‘Because its social! People used to know
about that. And the clothes come out very fresh’.

Connie became almost hysterical. She breathed in deeply to steady herself.

‘So it’s alright?’ She breathed.

‘Yes.’

Heather looked into her eyes, smiling in
the sunshine.

‘It’s alright’.

And here’s new young writer Hope’s
beautifully bleak vision of the future…

The sky appeared as a bleak and grey landscape, the air smelling
of the ever-burning charcoal. The Capital Accumulation Centres were beginning
to fill at 5 am on that morning, with all of the workers having had their
allocated slot for five hours of sleep come to an end. The workers knew they
were working towards a goal bigger than themselves, as they had been educated
on the benefits of their system since they could recognise their own national
anthem. Everything was planned, methodical, and organised for them, so they
could carry out the great honour of serving their respective owners and bosses.

The newest worker had only appeared a few days prior to the
current date, and had been speedily taught how to conform, to become one of the
CAC’s finest. Nobody knew where they had come from, or anything of their
previous owners, but there was still a level of confusion to their demeanor.
They had had the nerve to ask questions when one of the noble bosses had saved
them, finding them walking around the outskirts of the city’s borders, almost
threatening to step past the Line of No Return.

Nobody assumed they were from the nearby settlements, as no native
would ever truly desire to escape from their guaranteed freedoms, of their work
contributing to society in such positive and constructive ways - only the
foolish and cowardly passed that line.

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