by Chris Malicki
from
Scope magazine of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada – Toronto Centre
May/June 1994
I am writing to SCOPE to say that an informed and organized class of 30 Grade 6 students can spend two hours observing an eclipse in a rewarding and safe manner. My wife Liz and I who are passionate eclipse chasers (having now successfully observed five total and three annular eclipses), this time wanted to share the May 10 eclipse with the impressionable kids of our son Greg’s class instead of having them condemned to stay indoors for the wonderful event. As early as January 5, I wrote a detailed letter to Mr. Kelly, the principal, and to the Grade 6 teacher, Ms. O’Brien at St. Christopher’s school in Mississauga, proposing to observe this eclipse with the class. They were both most co-operative and enthusiastic, but it was not until April that I finally got the go-ahead from the school board (the board was finally convinced of the safety of the proposal after I submitted a copy of Ralph Chou’s article “Safe Solar Filters” and a sample of aluminized mylar to the Directory of Health and Safety). As it is, only this one class in the entire Dufferin-Peel Separate School Board received approval to observe the eclipse.
With only three weeks to go, Liz and I taught the kids in three one hour lessons about eclipses, how and what to observe, using scale models of the Sun – Moon – earth system, slides and videos. The Grade 6’s were fascinated and really hyped up for the event. Most of them made their own T-shirts using our world-wide collection as models, and wore them on eclipse day (the four best won prizes).
Eclipse day was a great success with beautiful skies. The occasional clouds did not obscure the 3 ½ minutes of annularity at our site in the schoolyard. My 14 year-old daughter Adrianna and two good friends helped us with our three telescopes projecting the Sun’s image, and with the C-8 which was available for direct viewing with a full aperture filter; parent volunteers supervised the students. The young students were outside for two hours doing experiments and observations (timings of contacts, temperature readings, making solar crescents, seeing “sharp shadows”). Each one had his/her own aluminized mylar viewer but for the critical times of 2nd and 3rd contacts they were asked to view the approaching solar horns and numerous Bailey’s beads on high magnification projection screens. A nice highlight was Venus which the majority of us observed naked eye right at the time of annularity. Liz was able to find the planet thanks to a “sightline” which I had set up the night before pointing to the planet’s predicted position during the eclipse.
What really impressed me was the enthusiasm, interest and wonder that these kids demonstrated during the entire time they were outside watching the dance of the spheres unfold. It makes me feel good to know that a little bit of planning, education and enthusiasm on the part of adults is all that is needed to get young people excited about the natural world. After the eclipse, a show of hands showed that most of them now wanted to see a total eclipse of the sun.