593
xkcd #2914: Eclipse Coolnesss
(imgs.xkcd.com)
Alt text:
A partial eclipse is like a cool sunset. A total eclipse is like someone broke the sky.
Meh I saw a full solar eclipse as a kid and it was fine. I mean it's not like we're seeing photographic proof of life at Alpha Centauri or something.
Schools are canceling for this by me. It's being treated like some sort of religious revelation.
Seems like a thing schools could take kids outside and yea know, teach them with?
The schools are just scared of having to prevent hundreds of children from staring at it without proper protection. It’s probably a good call, kids are dumb.
From my understanding, its mostly a logistics things. Some tiny towns are expecting to having huge surges of people and their infrastructure can't handle it. So they're telling people to stay at home instead and declared states of emergency. One school district already bought the glasses and are just giving them to students because of this.
We had one when I was a kid, and they had us poke a hole in a piece of paper, and then stand with our backs to the eclipse and watch it's shadow develop on the ground as projected through the paper. It was cool, but not as cool as actually seeing it directly.
The protective glasses are cheap, and there are lots of potentially dangerous things kids do at school.
I'm still salty over my elementary school, it was either 4th or 5th grade so would have been 1985 give or take a year. Total eclipse right in the middle of the school day. If they had cancelled school, I'd have been ok with that, but no, they cancelled recess and closed all the blinds and made us just sit there. Surprised they didn't make us hide under our desks.
Edit
After digging into this a bit (because of course I can't leave it alone) it probably wasn't a total eclipse... Not like I would remember since I didn't get to see it... But the only one that fits the time and region was May 30 1984, which was annular, and would have been 90-95% where I was...
Tbh I remember we even readied sunglasses or similar stuff and went out for partial eclipses during the school days. It just made sense to include this in the teaching.
Depends on the location and timing. For a lot of the northeast part of the path, the eclipse is going to happen right after school lets out. Most of the students would still be on their way home
Well, it's a really cool thing that you only get a once in a lifetime chance to witness first hand unless you have a shit ton of money for travel (most people don't). So I say, let them have it.