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Lewiston News Tribune, 10/3/97 Unique Partnership Gives Students a First-Hand Look at Container Shipping Eighteen-year-old Dustin Louie couldn't believe the size of the rolls of tissue paper at Potlatch Corp.’s tissue mill in Lewiston. While visiting the company this week, the west Seattle High student also learned that some of the toilet paper he bags working at Safeway is made by Potlatch. “It's amazing it takes all this to make toilet paper and paper,” Louie said Thursday afternoon. Nearby, Louie's art teacher, Mike Gervais, smiled when he saw a train pass through the Potlatch Corp. warehouse in which he was standing. “I can't believe that train is running right through here,” he said out loud to himself, still smiling. The six West Seattle High students and their teacher came to Lewiston Wednesday to see the start of what will be about a seven-month journey for a 40-foot cargo container. The traveling container was dreamed up by the Port of Seattle and the ocean-going steamship company, American Presidents Lines, as a way to draw attention to themselves and the role of international trade. West Seattle High students first got involved by drawing pictures for the outside of the blue container. The pictures had to represent something from Washington state or Japan, which will be the cargo container's first foreign stop. The drawings chosen to decorate the container known as the Boomerang Box, were enlarged and made to look like postage stamps.
Once they return to Seattle, the teachers involved will work to develop curriculum around the Boomerang Box, Gervais said. The plan is for students in various parts of the world to get involved and follow the cargo container on an Internet Web site. Sixteen-year-old Shannon Stevens said she volunteered for the trip because she wanted to learn about international trade. “People say international trade is the big thing now,” Stevens said. She's also a reporter for the high school newspaper and had signed up to write about the Boomerang Box, she said. Her story now, though, might be about Potlatch, Stevens said. After touring Potlatch forest land Wednesday with a forester and learning about reforestation as well as the various ways to harvest trees, Stevens said she was impressed with the way Potlatch seems to care about the environment. The students watched Thursday afternoon as a front-end loader shoved 18 rolls of Potlatch paper into the Boomerang Box, filling it up. They followed it to the Port of Lewiston, where Gator Intermodal loaded it onto a train headed for the Port of Seattle. The students left on a late afternoon flight out of Lewiston, and once back at school in Seattle they will make a photo display about Potlatch Corp. and the container and show it to other Seattle schools. Potlatch Corp.'s paper will be unloaded in Japan and delivered to the company's customer, and the Boomerang Box will be loaded with another product and head off to another part of the world. |
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