MANCHESTER, NJ — While people around the area turned Monday’s solar eclipse into a day of picnics and parties, Manchester Township students spent the afternoon taking in a live science lesson.
The Manchester Township School District provided all of its elementary school students with solar eclipse-safe glasses to view the astronomical event, and teachers took the children outside to see what they could see of the partial eclipse.
The sun was about 90 percent covered by the moon in Ocean County at the peak of totality, though clouds obscured the view for many in the county.
The students drew the phases they were witnessing, journaled about the eclipse, and had conversations with peers about what they were seeing, based on what they learned in class about the solar eclipse, district officials said.
At Regional Day School, the students also received glasses and some made special art from paper plates to go with their glasses and prevent them from accidentally looking over their glasses.
In addition, there were conversations with students, families and Manchester staff during dismissal about what the students learned about the eclipse in school and how they witnessed it safely with the protective glasses, officials said.
For the students and staff it was an interactive day of learning and captured a moment that will not happen again for 20 years.