One hundred years from now, people will be able to step back into the lives of Southing¬ton teenagers in 2008. This will be possible, not with a time machine, but through brows¬ing the pages of a scrapbook created by middle school girls that will be kept for posterity by the Southington Historical Society.

"Through the Eyes of Mid¬dle School Girl" gave students from both of the town's middle schools free rein to depict their lives, their feelings, their hob¬bies and favorite activities. Through photos, artwork and journaling, they told of eating pizza, dancing, playing softball and going to the movies. They told how they have built mem¬ories of fun times with friends at places like Lake Com¬pounce, Camp Sloper and the Apple Harvest Festival. The six months of work was com¬piled into one huge volume filled with colorful scrapbook pages embellished with stick¬ers and decorations.
"We tried to show all the things you can do in Southing¬ton and the places you can go," said Melissa Shuster, 12, who attends Kennedy Middle School.
The imaginative scrapbook and the students took center stage at a reception held April 24 at the Southington Public Library. Parents, school offi¬cials, coordinators and stu¬dents met each other and dis¬cussed the finished master¬piece.
"This was a good cross-sec¬tion of what girls this age like to do and go. They could see that not everybody is the same," said Susan Saucier, di¬rector of Southington Youth Services, who developed the project. The Calvanese Foun¬dation played a major role by providing funding for materi¬als and other supporters were the library and Making Memo¬ries Scrapbooking, she said.
The idea was born several years ago from the six-week workshop, Girl Power, for girls ages 9 to 13. The program helped build positive activi¬ties, provide role models, and build important life skills to make healthy choices, deal with stress and help the teens feel good about themselves. The latest project continues those lessons, organizers said. Almost 60 students took part in "Through the Eyes of a Middle School Girl."
The scrapbook will be on display at the public library through May and will later be¬come part of the collection of the historical society.