By Andrew Yu '25 (Reporter)
Please note: This article was written in May 2024
Friends’ Central’s Moonshadow Team, our student eclipse ambassadors and enthusiasts, has been busy all year informing the public about the Annular Eclipse of 2023 and the Great American Eclipse of 2024. The team is led by Upper School Physics Teacher and NASA Eclipse Ambassador Deborah Skapik and recently embarked on an expedition to Vermont to catch totality. Here’s what to know about the fantastic crew.
The Moonshadow Team’s preparations began almost one year ago, in the summer of 2023. On summer afternoons and evenings, Moonshadow members delved into a crash course on astronomy and eclipses, with topics ranging from celestial navigation and moon phases to eclipse conditions and eclipse-viewing safety. This laid a solid foundation as they prepared to educate others about eclipses.
There, students of all different strengths — artists, public speakers, equipment experts, organizers — also designed and created several intuitive demonstrations and presentations to be presented at eclipse activities and educational events to other young students and citizens at local schools and libraries in the time before the eclipse.
Throughout the school year, Moonshadow held several workshops, including at the FCS Lower School, Gill Memorial Library, Lansdowne Library, and other gathering spaces to help the public understand the upcoming eclipses. Moonshadow also organized a festival at the Upper School on October 14th for celebrating and viewing the annular eclipse for students.
Over the winter, Moonshadow continued to prepare for its trip to Vermont, planning additional workshops, preparing viewing equipment, creating new demonstrations, and keeping the eclipse enthusiasm alive. It continued to share eclipse knowledge through more workshops at the Wallingford, Springfield, Darby, and Marcus Hook libraries.
On April 4th, 2024, the Moonshadow Team traveled to Underhill, VT, to prepare in the path of totality, the area of total solar eclipse. In the following three days, Moonshadow held workshops for JFK Elementary School in Winooski, VT, the Echo Leahy Center at Lake Champlain, and the Teddy Bear Factory. Between workshops, students spent their free time exploring downtown Burlington, touring Champlain College and meeting FCS alumni there, tasting syrup at Shelburne Sugarworks, enjoying the natural beauty of rural VT, and star-hopping the stars at night, as they waited for the eclipse day to come.
The ultimate culmination of years-long work and effort came on April 8th, 2024, the day of the total eclipse. Hours beforehand, students had prepared eclipse experiments, including measuring the radio interference effect in near and distant city stations, recording ambient sound of wildlife during totality, temperature monitoring, photographing the sun’s corona, and more. A livestream of the event was broadcast to FCS Upper School for all students to watch. As first contact, C1, was made with the sun, students donned their solar glasses and waited for the final moment.
As the moon passed in front of the sun, the sky darkened to night, and the last rays of light shone through but a bright single point, a hush fell over the crowd, and the intensity of the silence was immense. As that final ray was obscured by the moon, and the sun’s wispy white corona in its completeness was revealed, a cheer erupted.
Totality had finally arrived.
Some students cried, while others stood silent in shock. Some rejoiced with their friends, crying out in joy.
After almost four minutes, the sun returned, and the total eclipse was complete.
As students reluctantly returned to FCS the next day, the image of the sunless sky was still painted in their minds, a new passion kindled their hearts. They have become umbraphiles, shadow lovers, those who chase eclipses across the globe, in search of the shadow of the moon.
Image credits: Moonshadow Team
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