Solar Eclipse Party Held at O'Neal
Last Monday, O'Neal students in all divisions had the opportunity to celebrate the solar eclipse. It was a special eclipse for many historical reasons and the astronomy students hosted a solar eclipse party.
According to Middle School Science Teacher Maggie Watkins....
This year's eclipse was special - North America only receives a total solar eclipse roughly once every 100 years. According to history resources, Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa (aka The Prophet) used their knowledge of the approaching total eclipse in 1806 to politically push against future-president William Harrison and settler expansion into Ohio. Einstein also used the total eclipse in 1916 to help support his theory of general relativity.
The Astronomy students in the Upper School ran two different science stations where other students could come help collect data: one monitoring the temperature and one monitoring the wind speed. Over the course of a half-hour leading up to the peak of the eclipse, the average temperature in the sun dropped by about 9°C and the average wind speed decreased by about 4 mph. The 6" telescope was set up with a solar filter so that students and faculty could see a magnified view of the eclipse. Before the moon covered them up, students even got to see some sunspots.
This year's eclipse was special - North America only receives a total solar eclipse roughly once every 100 years. According to history resources, Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa (aka The Prophet) used their knowledge of the approaching total eclipse in 1806 to politically push against future-president William Harrison and settler expansion into Ohio. Einstein also used the total eclipse in 1916 to help support his theory of general relativity.
The Astronomy students in the Upper School ran two different science stations where other students could come help collect data: one monitoring the temperature and one monitoring the wind speed. Over the course of a half-hour leading up to the peak of the eclipse, the average temperature in the sun dropped by about 9°C and the average wind speed decreased by about 4 mph. The 6" telescope was set up with a solar filter so that students and faculty could see a magnified view of the eclipse. Before the moon covered them up, students even got to see some sunspots.
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