"A Day in the Life of a Teenage Hobo" & AI's Potential for Historical Simulations and Immersive Exploration
An excerpt from Integrating AI in History & Social Studies Education: A Comprehensive Guide for K-12 Teachers
In past posts, I’ve discussed the unique AI opportunities for AI integration in traditional K12 subject areas like History and Social Studies. I’ve been developing those ideas into an extensive AI guidebook for History and Social Studies teachers. I plan to release the guidebook in August. Here is an excerpt:
AI for Historical Simulations and Immersive Exploration
One of the most exciting frontiers for AI in history classrooms lies in simulation and immersion. Technology can bring the past alive in ways that deepen empathy, spark curiosity, and foster creative thinking. These uses go beyond what textbooks or even traditional digital tools have offered. They allow students to enter the past, interact with it, and interrogate it.
As a United States history teacher, I learned how technology could empower and inspire my students. I think foremost of the “A Day in the Life of a Teenage Hobo” assignment that my 10th-grade students undertook. At the time, I was frustrated with the conventional “alphabet soup” (WPA, TVA, CCC, etc.) approach to teaching the Great Depression, which stressed New Deal legislation but failed to resonate with my students.
So, I decided to abandon the political-history approach to the Great Depression and, instead, asked my students to use their knowledge of the period to create a fictional story about a day in the life of a teenage hobo. In doing so, I redefined the unit learning goal from the ability to explain the political response to the Great Depression to the ability to explain how impoverished teenagers understood and navigated the social, economic, and political conditions of the Depression. Earlier, I had brought them to the PBS American Experience website “Riding the Rails,” which housed multi-media stories, images, and recordings to reveal the experience of the 250,000 teenage hoboes of the Great Depression. As students read the stories and stared at the photos, they started to see, understand, and feel the Great Depression from the point of view of teenagers much like (and yet different from) themselves.
My students wrote astounding stories. Nearly all of them created a rich historical portrait using specific details from the students’ research into life during the Depression. One student wrote a heart-wrenching story, “There’s no Aunt Sarah,” about a young girl sent away by her father to live with a distant aunt. The girl rides the rails from Kansas to California, overcoming many obstacles, only to discover that there is no Aunt Sarah. The story was not only captivating, but the student used the vernacular of the period to write it!
I was so impressed with their stories that I decided we would produce a radio show (the 1930s were the “Golden Age’ of radio, after all) and I interviewed each of them in character for the episode. The kids were so excited as I asked them probing questions about their character’s existence, that I don’t think it dawned on them I was administering an oral exam! (About 85 percent of the grade was based on their ability to demonstrate their understanding of the forces of the Great Depression in the context of a plausible story.) Years later, at reunions, students would come up to tell me that the Teenage Hobo project is what they remembered most from my teaching.
I often imagine what we could do together if I were still their teacher. AI brings many possibilities that we couldn’t even imagine.
For instance, using Hello History, students could engage in a structured dialogue with AI personas representing figures from the Great Depression. These conversations—designed and scaffolded— could help students consider historical perspective, voice, and agency. When a student asks an AI-powered persona, “Why did you leave your family to ride the rails?”, the responses can elicit both emotional and intellectual engagement.
Other AI tools emphasize spatial and chronological exploration. Yorescape, AI Time Machine, and Time Portal allow students to explore AI-enhanced environments, events, and timelines. For example, a student studying the Roman Empire can walk through a 3D cityscape or explore trade networks through an interactive timeline. These tools situate students in place and time, which is critical for understanding geography, environment, and cultural diffusion.
Google Arts & Culture offers virtual museum tours, allowing students to explore artifacts from different regions or periods. Combined with AI-generated guides or scaffolded inquiry questions, these visits become much more than passive viewing, rather they become interpretive exercises.
These immersive experiences support several key historical thinking skills: perspective-taking, contextualization, and synthesis. They also foster emotional resonance, helping students move beyond abstraction to understand the lived experience of historical actors.
In the hands of thoughtful teachers, AI becomes a portal—not just to information, but to imagination.
—
*post image via Library of Congress
Any suggestions to improve this newsletter? Please message me or leave a comment below!