“I’ve always loved history, finding out about how certain things happened, and the way the world works,” Solon High School social studies teacher Todd Kopecky said. “Local history, one of the cool things about it, is it’s really relatable.”

To start out the assignment, Kopecky projects Google Maps on the board and gives his students a virtual tour of the city, and students pick a location they are interested in learning about.

“My parameters are usually that the [building has] been there for quite a while,” Kopecky said. “One of the exceptions is like the site where Big Grove is. It’s only been in its current existence there for about a dozen years, but before that site had stood there for quite a while and it was a prominent corner for business in the town.”

From there, the students begin the process of researching the historic building or property they want to focus on for the project.

“Generally we go to the library to learn more about where to find information, about what those buildings have been throughout their lives, when they were built, why they were built, the original purpose of the structure, and then the many lives that building has lived since its construction,” Kopecky said.

Kopecky would also like to highlight and thank the local Solon Public Library librarians for their help with the project each year. “Kris Brown (former Library Director) is an incredible resource, and the community is very lucky to have her as well as (current Director) Liz King,” he said. “She’s been another fantastic resource for our classroom.”

Besides the library, Kopecky’s classes also pay a visit to the Sutliff Bridge and Baxa’s Sutliff Store & Tavern, in nearby Lisbon, during the local history unit. Kopecky says that his students are generally always excited about the field trips they get to attend in class.

“I think local history is one of the more important things to study, and it’s something that the kids can really physically go out and do and get involved with,” Kopecky said. “It is meaningful because it’s their story as well. It’s their neighborhoods, their downtown, their schools, and the people they interact with.”

Although Kopecky is from Eastern Iowa, he actually didn’t invent the local history project he does with his classes, but inherited the idea from Denny Gruber, a retired Solon teacher who focused on Iowa’s history in his classes.

“One of the things I wanted to put my own stamp on was adding some more of the local history rather than just Iowa’s history,” Kopecky said. “Denny did a fantastic job of looking at all of Iowa’s history, including local stuff. But I thought the history of Solon really would be important, so that’s kind of why I started doing it.”

Besides just following the state mandated requirements for high school history, Kopecky says that the goal of the class is to instill local pride in his students.

“The goal in it is just to have a better understanding of the state’s history and pride in the state and where they are from,” he said.

Kopecky adds that a lot of his students didn’t think much about local history until the project, so he is glad to help introduce his students to the topic. “They readily identify with U.S. history, as they all take it as freshmen,” Kopecky said. “But as far as local history, I don’t think a lot of them really think about it until they’re presented with it, and they are enthusiastic about it.”

An overall highlight of the project is the connections that students are able to develop with the family members and older members of the community as a result.

“I know they do go home and talk to their parents about it,” Kopecky said. “Sometimes it’s their generational families, they’ll talk to their grandparents about what we learned about this or that, and the grandparents then will chime in about other stuff and they’ll come back and tell me about it.”

Kopecky says that he encourages all social studies and history teachers to incorporate a local history project into their curriculum and encourage their students to research as far back into time as possible.

“I feel like if you’re going to do local history, you’ve really got to start as an educator looking at some of the earlier events and some of the structures and important landmarks that remain and really dig into those and get the kids exposed to understanding what they mean.”