Don’t get worried if your day gets a bit darker on Aug. 21, because that’s just the rare event of a solar eclipse you’re witnessing.
Though solar eclipses happen every few years, they are not always visible in the same location. The last time Americans were able to see a total solar eclipse, which nearly blocks out the entire sun, was at around noon on Feb. 26, 1979. According to NASA, the eclipse will take place on Aug. 21, from 1:03 to 3:51 p.m.
In preparation, people such as Fairbanks High School biology teacher Crystal Tebbe are gearing to make the event a learning exercise. Though will be in Ozark, Illinois, for the best view of the eclipse, she said she’ll be creating a photo or video montage to share with her students.
“We’ll share our experiences together,” she said. “When I come back with those pictures… we’ll take some time in class to look at their pictures and to show my pictures.”
She said this was a “last minute” preparation to try and get the school and students in on it, but she’s been creating hype for her students. Since July 10, she’s been sharing posts about the solar eclipse on Twitter to her students. She said other teachers will be doing “their own thing with it,” but they haven’t had enough time to collaborate.
She plans to use information from NASA and stories from various media outlets covering the event to help teach her students about the subject. Since the solar eclipse is happening near the beginning of the school year, she’s planning a different approach to learning.
“I’m totally ‘nerding’ out about this opportunity to go learn more about it and then bring that knowledge back to my students,” Tebbe said. “We’ll have only been in school for a couple of days, so instead of our usual textbook… we’re going to throw a crash course on solar science.”
She said a part of the lesson plan will involve teaching her students how to take photography of the solar eclipse with their smartphones. For this, she’s already purchased a large bundle of solar shields that will allow the students to look at the eclipse with safety.
She said there’s a common misconception when it comes to eclipses. People assume they won’t be able to recognize the event. She said it will look basically like the regular phenomenon of a cloud blocking out the sun.
Excitement for the eclipse isn’t just at Fairbanks High School. Richard Rausch, principal at St. John’s Lutheran School, is preparing to get students at his school motivated to discover more about the phenomenon.
“We’re going to outfit all of our kiddos… with glasses, and prior to that, we’ll be doing some activities to educate them about what’s going on,” he said. “I’d like to tie it in cross-curricular with our reading, like reading reports or genres involved with astronomy.”
Rausch said he plans to involve his students with various activities like field trips and “community partnering.” He said he’s talking to a resident who owns an observation platform in Marysville about arranging field trips for astronomy exercises.
He said this initiative was inspired by a teacher being interested in the eclipse, who then proceeded to email Rausch over the summer about it.
The position on Earth where one can see an eclipse changes every year, and the position where people can see the most blackout is called the line of totality. The line of totality this year goes through Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia North Carolina, and South Carolina. Ohio is on the outskirts of this line of totality, and Marysville is in the partial blackout zone. Like with what Tebbe said, areas in Central Ohio will only see an almost complete blackout.
Tebbe said, although she’s watching the eclipse in Illinois, she’s already excited and ready to plan the next American total solar eclipse, which will happen April 8, 2024. According to NASA, the line of totality in 2024 goes through Ohio, which makes Union County poised to see most of the light of the sun obscured for a few minutes that day.
“It’s near enough to where we could just do a program here at school,” she said. “If there are any nearby programs, like if (The Ohio State University) does something or if any of the other colleges down near Dayton are doing anything, I’ll see if I can load up the students and take them.”
She said things could change, but she hopes to take her students to get as close as possible to the line of totality. In this case, the closest residents from Marysville could get to the line of totality would be Waynesfield in Auglaize County, which is about 47 miles away.
In the meantime, to prepare to see the eclipse, it’s still and always recommended to never look directly at the sun, even if the moon is in front of it. To see the eclipse, you would need to get a telescope, a set of solar shield glasses or use a pinhole card projector, and there are many tutorials on the internet available for how to use these methods.