This coming Monday should be, by all accounts, a normal day of school. But for three hours, the planet will go dark — and Colorado teachers are seizing it as a teaching moment.
On Monday, as Denver Public Schools starts and students in other Colorado districts settle into the first few weeks of the school year, the moon will blot out regularly scheduled programming as the United States experiences a rare total solar eclipse.
From launching balloons to constructing “sun funnels,” science teachers across the country have big plans for the “Great American Eclipse.” Although Colorado does not lie in the so-called “path of totality,” our view shouldn’t be bad, either.
The eclipse is expected to reach 92.3 percent totality over Denver from after 10 a.m. to around 1 p.m., and schools throughout the state are setting aside time for students to view it safely.
“There’s kind of a new push in science for what is called phenomenon-driven science education,” said Renee Belisle, the grade 3-8 science curriculum specialist for DPS. “Through understanding those events, we understand more of the world around us. Kids can observe this phenomenon and then they can start to generate explanations for why this happens.”
Several districts have ordered or received donations of solar eclipse glasses to help students safely view the phenomenon. Belisle said DPS received a donation of 20,000 glasses to distributed “as equitably as possible” among 93,000 students.
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