Photo courtesy of Laurie King.
Crestline fourth graders Maddox Brown, Sam Estes, Jackson Yokel, Henson Estes and Speir Stagner.
On Monday Aug. 21, students at Crestline Elementary, not unlike most school children across the southeast, viewed the solar eclipse.
Because students in our area would only experience a partial eclipse of the sun, teachers and administrators wanted to provide a safe opportunity for them to view this memorable event. Crestline students in kindergarten through third grade watched the eclipse via livestream video. They were then given opportunities to make observations about the change in the amount of light entering their classroom.
With permission, students in fourth through sixth grade went outside wearing approved glasses. While these students were not lucky enough to find themselves along the path of totality, they were able to view the partial phase of the solar eclipse and noted some changes in the environment including about a 10 degree drop in temperature and crescent shaped lights filtering through the trees creating really cool shadows. They even began to hear cicadas chirping from the surrounding trees.
Some of the classes made cereal box pinhole viewers to view the eclipse and others used the 3D printer to print a 3D pinhole viewer in the shape of the state of Alabama. The highlight of the fourth graders’ viewing experience was watching the shadows shaped like the state of Alabama dance across Crestline field.
-Submitted by Caroline Springfield.
