Council Groves ? If everything goes as planned, people living in Kansas 50 years from now will have a way to understand what life was like in the Flint Hills in 2011.

A Flint Hills Discovery Center under construction in Manhattan is asking people in 21 Flint Hills counties to put together time capsules containing information and insights into their lives, The Hutchinson News reported Monday.

Bob Workman, director of the discovery center, said the time capsules will be installed in a special wall inside the science and history learning center, which is expected to open on the southern edge of downtown Manhattan next April. The plan is to have the time capsules opened during the 2061 Kansas bicentennial.

The discovery center staff will work with the Flint Hills Tourism Coalition to find people in each county to coordinate the time capsule project. The capsules are due by the end of August.

One of the counties asked to participate is Morris County, which has just begun collecting ideas and artifacts for a time capsule.

“We have had a discussion that (the items) should be positive, as well as negative,” said Lynne Burns, executive director of the Council Grove/Morris County Chamber of Commerce. “The Flint Hills Discovery Center wants things that you can feel, see and touch.”

Chamber staff members will be working with the Morris County Historical Society, Boy and Girl Scout troops, women’s organizations and other groups to determine what they want to place in the time capsule. The county’s time capsule will be sealed June 15 at the old Carnegie library in Council Grove as part of the community’s annual Washunga Days celebration.

Ground was broken for the 35,000-square-foot Flint Hills Tourism Center on July 7. The center — made of limestone layered in striated patterns that resemble the Flint Hills — will have more than 10,000 square feet of interactive exhibits, multimedia programming, classrooms, gardens, a cafe and a store.