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The path of the total solar eclipse April 8 goes right through Indiana, and Indy gets almost 4 minutes of totality. At the end of last semester, the college announced it would operate virtually all day for it. The reactions to this have been fascinating.
- my students were confused as to what about an eclipse would mean we needed to close campus.
- a colleague who teaches math seemed to think the answer to that question had to do with the sun causing some kind of technological failures.
- my office mate who teaches astronomy is actually kind of relieved, because she had been trying to plan a campus event and now she can just enjoy it as a person.
Again, my office mate is an astronomer, so we've had all these conversations over the last year or so, it's been on her calendar since the last partial eclipse here in 2017 - the one where Wyoming doubled its population that day, and there were 12-hour traffic jams leaving Wyoming to go back to Colorado. There's a lot more of the populated US that will see this one, and a lot more folks an easy drive from the path of totality. My friend who has a school-age kid was talking about what they're going to do - totality will hit here right around time for school to let out, so having school as normal seems not right. But astronomical event as tourist event, sounds fun.
My Monday afternoon class is getting a video lecture, as the eclipse will happen right during class, and I'm not missing it to teach integration by substitution. I'm a little concerned about getting back from wherever we watch it for my night class. Chris bought tickets to the event the Speedway is hosting - I think we can assume traffic back from that won't be as bad as the 500, but I'm still a little worried? The art museum's also having a "Total Eclipse of the Art" event, and my local state park announced an event just recently.
This is all assuming that the skies are clear that day, which in April in Indiana is absolutely not guaranteed. Fingers crossed!
- my students were confused as to what about an eclipse would mean we needed to close campus.
- a colleague who teaches math seemed to think the answer to that question had to do with the sun causing some kind of technological failures.
- my office mate who teaches astronomy is actually kind of relieved, because she had been trying to plan a campus event and now she can just enjoy it as a person.
Again, my office mate is an astronomer, so we've had all these conversations over the last year or so, it's been on her calendar since the last partial eclipse here in 2017 - the one where Wyoming doubled its population that day, and there were 12-hour traffic jams leaving Wyoming to go back to Colorado. There's a lot more of the populated US that will see this one, and a lot more folks an easy drive from the path of totality. My friend who has a school-age kid was talking about what they're going to do - totality will hit here right around time for school to let out, so having school as normal seems not right. But astronomical event as tourist event, sounds fun.
My Monday afternoon class is getting a video lecture, as the eclipse will happen right during class, and I'm not missing it to teach integration by substitution. I'm a little concerned about getting back from wherever we watch it for my night class. Chris bought tickets to the event the Speedway is hosting - I think we can assume traffic back from that won't be as bad as the 500, but I'm still a little worried? The art museum's also having a "Total Eclipse of the Art" event, and my local state park announced an event just recently.
This is all assuming that the skies are clear that day, which in April in Indiana is absolutely not guaranteed. Fingers crossed!
