NASA specialist, ambassadors host eclipse party for Brunswick County schools

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) – A Calabash man brought NASA to Brunswick County to join students and teachers watching the solar eclipse.

We shared with you the story of NASA members bringing the viewing party to Brunswick County Academy. They want to use events like this once in a lifetime phenomenon to attract more North Carolina schools and students to including space science in their curriculum.

“Oh it’s wonderful, it’s a wonderful experience, it’s not an experience you get to do everyday. Obviously when you’ve got something like this going on it’s incredible to get the kids together, enjoy it, and teach them all about it,” says Chris Rabon whose family attends the academy.

It’s that teaching lesson that motivated NASA specialist Keith Duclos to reach out to the school to host the event.

“These kids that are coming back to Brunswick schools next week will have experienced the eclipse and now in their classrooms, with a science emphasis that the schools have here, they’ll be talking about ‘why did we see that?’,” says the Texas State University NASA education specialist.

Unfortunately for these kids it was a brief glimpse at the partial eclipse. Cloud cover interrupted the eclipse right after the 2 o’ clock hour when it was reaching totality.

“We’ve been able to enjoy live feeds inside on all of the other points of totality across the United States. We’ve learned a lot of information and even though it’s a little cloudy right now our spirits aren’t dampened,” says school district spokesperson Jessica Swenski.

Even a partial glimpse catches the excitement of everyone young and old.

“I was thinking about what’s going to happen today and I think it’s pretty cool,” says one young viewer.

Science being cool, something Duclos is happy to hear coming from the next generation.

“These are incredible events that will undoubtedly stay with us for the rest of our lives, to be able to share it with my new neighbors, it doesn’t get any better than this,” Duclos says.

Teachers anticipate the solar eclipse will be the talk of the hallways when students head back to class next Monday.