Photo provided Columbus North history students immerse themselves into the experience of a “Cold War” air raid drill in a bunker at the high school.
A Columbus North High School social studies teacher has been taking his students back in time to the Cold War era, using an old basement as a time machine.
Students hear the scream of an air raid siren and are led to a bunker underneath the school. No, the Soviets are not coming — Chad Russell is about to teach.
It’s part of an immersive educational experience Russell has put on for his Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) students for the past couple of years, he said. When it’s time for students to begin curriculum on the Cold War, down to the bunker they go for a lesson.
“I’ll give them a little bit of lecture up in the classroom one day, and then the next day when they get to class and get seated, they’ll hear an air raid siren go off, which to them, is quite the novelty,” Russell said. “But, of course, had that happened at the height of the Cold War, it would have been very scary.”
Columbus North High School was originally built in 1952 at a time when the inclusion of the bunkers were common inside many public buildings, Russell said.
“Any building built at what we would consider the height of the Cold War fear with public money was going to almost always have a public shelter that was incorporated into it. The high school was no different,” he said.
As those Cold War fears subsided, it became just another space, filled with old athletic equipment and furniture until Russell had an idea.
APUSH is a fast-moving course and there aren’t many opportunities for field trips. So Russell wanted to do something educational that would also stick in students’ minds.
“I wanted to have the opportunity for a meaningful lesson that would take them out of the classroom. And I’d begun toying around with the idea of immersive learning environments, where they’re completely immersed in a moment of history,” Russell continued. “… As much as I love to teach about the Roman Empire, nothing that I do at school will be as impactful as standing in the Coliseum and soaking it in with all five senses. So I wanted to take that kind of experience and try to replicate it to the best of my ability within the school building.”
Posters from the Cold War era are taped on the wall. One features Uncle Sam sitting on a ship with “USA” on the side, as it heads towards “The Red Iceberg.” Gravestones on the iceberg bear the names of former Soviet-aligned countries in East Germany, Poland and Hungary.
“We watch video that was produced at the time by civil defense,” Russell said. “They all watch Bert the Turtle — duck and cover — all that stuff that people of that generation would certainly be well-familiar with.”
Students learn to answer questions about everything from what was going on in Cuba to McCarthyism to the space race.
“Of course that happens over a couple of decades, but when you’re exposed to it continuously over such a long period of time, and there’s story after story of the ‘Reds’ that are infiltrating Hollywood, and you’re seeing things on television about trials taking place in Congress, and how we’re being beaten in the space race by the Russians— all those things are going to have a cumulative effect on people’s mindset and how they view what’s going on in the world,” he said.
It’s not unusual, according to Russell, for students to want to take pictures of the bunker to send to relatives who may have more visceral memories of the time period.
“I’ll have kids come to me all the time after that and tell me, ‘Hey, my grandpa talked about this’ or ‘I’ve told him about this lesson and he shared that story.’ So to me, it not only is great for that day and for my students in that time, but it’s also something that fosters curiosity and conversation between them and older generations.”
With the help of two students and a contribution from the Bull Dog Alumni Association, Russell said another space representing an earlier time in American history will be the site of a lesson sometime early next semester.
