Students, teachers use solar eclipse as learning opportunity

A once-in-a-lifetime event happened around the St. Louis area when the solar eclipse happened on Aug. 21 with its path of totality going through most of the area.

Pattonville School District purchased solar glasses for all students to give them the chance to watch the event.

Even though Pattonville wasn’t going to be in total darkness, people were still excited about it but first, students had to learn how to be safe during the eclipse.

Before the solar eclipse, teachers were telling students how to wear the special glasses and shared facts about the eclipse.

Math teacher Ms. Stephanie Heyman showed a video from The Weather Channel to show her students what was going to happen. Also in the video, it showed the importance of wearing the glasses so students didn’t permanently hurt their eyes.

After learning about the eclipse, students were able to go outside and witness it.

“I thought it was really neat to watch the eclipse because I have never seen anything like it,” Allison Brown said. “I was also a little disappointed because I did think it was going to get completely dark and even though it didn’t, it was still really cool.”

Some students thought school should have been canceled because of how rare it is with the next eclipse in the area supposed to happen in 2024 but the line of totality does not go through St. Louis.

Mr. Michael Oostendorp was one teacher who said school shouldn’t be canceled because students need to learn about events like this. Even though he said school shouldn’t be canceled, he said it was important to still be able to take his class outside and enjoy the rare event.