THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - It’s not often a window to the past the lies just beneath your driveway. One by one, a few Cal Lutheran students descended a ladder and into a bomb shelter from the early 1960s.

"It’s a lot smaller than I thought it would be. I didn’t expect it to be circular or dome-shaped," said Olivia Schouten, one of the students on this historical field trip.

Schouten and her two classmates, Jacob Mansour and Trevor Kierstead, are working on an assignment for their Cold War class.  They’re canvasing specific housing developments in Thousand Oaks to find out how many homes still have bomb shelters.  

"It’s really cool to see something that has withstood time," Schouten said.

But reality quickly sets in for her.

"I don’t know how you would realistically have five or six people down here," she said.

The group noticed an air vent in the ceiling with a crank that would open and close it in case of an attack.

"This is a worst possible case scenario," Kierstead said.  

"Honestly, I think I’d rather just die quickly," Mansour said.

According to CalTrans, the Dales housing development and the Sunset Conejo development may have the most nuclear fallout shelters in California, but this was one of the only ones these students found fully intact.

"People come over and it’s always like a novelty to show off," said Adrienne Cope, who owns a home with a bomb shelter.

Cope has lived at the house for about six years, but only recently worked up the nerve to explore the bunker herself. 

"Looking back, I think it’s kind of funny," she said.  "Realistically, I don’t know how much you would survive in something like that."

Her home was built in the early 1960s—a time when Americans worried about nuclear war with the Soviet Union, so much so a builder placed an ad in the Los Angeles Times touting, ”Southern California’s only residential developments with fallout protection.”

"They were almost like pools, where the developer would ask you, 'Do you want to add a bomb shelter?'" Schouten explained.

It's the same generation that warned students to get under their desk in the event of a nuclear attack through the "Duck and Cover" campaign.

"Neighbors are like, 'You gotta use it for a wine cellar.' I’m like, 'I’m not going 20 feet underground to get a bottle of wine.' I like wine too much," Cope laughed.

"It puts everything in perspective, how people lived back then, the fear in their minds," Kierstead said.

A hands on lesson about Cold War history happening right under their feet.