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E&S 4 - Key Skills & Wellbeing Indicators

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Sciene Collaborative Planning Document - E&S 4

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Videos related to the LO

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Links to other Learning Outcomes Explained 

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Links to other Learning Outcomes Explained 

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Current news events related to the LO

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To what lengths would you go to experience totality? In the early hours of this morning, adventurous eclipse chasers got the chance to see a very rare eclipse that was tricky to observe.

On 20 April 2023 the Moon completely blocked the Sun, causing a rare sort of solar eclipse as seen from a narrow path through the southern hemisphere.

The eclipse began at 01:34 UTC on 20 April, with the greatest eclipse taking place at 04:16 UTC.

Beginning in the Indian Ocean at sunrise and ending at sunset in the Pacific, most of the path of the hybrid total solar eclipse - which has become known as the Ningaloo Eclipse - was at sea, visiting only brief strips of land in Western Australia, Timor-Leste and West Papua.

After the last two total solar eclipses in 2020 and 2021 were affected by Covid travel restrictions, the eclipse-chasing community could have done with a slightly more accessible event this time around.

That wasn't to be, though it's estimated that at least 20,000 people travelled to experience no more than 76 seconds of totality during the hybrid solar eclipse.

Coming just over 500 days since a total solar eclipse in Antarctica, this short eclipse was visible from a very narrow and hard-to-reach path across the globe.

This was a very rare kind of solar eclipse that occurs only seven times in the 21st century.

Read on to find out more, as we reported ahead of the eclipse

20 April hybrid solar eclipse news report

For this eclipse, the match-up between the apparent size of the Moon and Sun is so similar during totality that eclipse-chasers will likely see an extended display of Baily's beads as a broken ring around the Moon just before and after totality (some of you may remember the spectacular image that won the 2016 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition).

That alone is enough to get some eclipse-chasers excited, but should also be possible to observe an unbroken ring of the Sun's red chromosphere just as totality begins and ends.

Why the 2023 hybrid solar eclipse will be so special

Tomorrow's total solar eclipse is technically referred to as a hybrid solar eclipse.

There are two types of central solar eclipse: total and annular.

During a total solar eclipse, the Moon entirely blocks the Sun for a few minutes and allows observers to see the solar corona with their naked eyes.

During an annular solar eclipse the Moon is slightly too far away from earth in its elliptical orbit, and so doesn't quite block all of the Moon, resulting in a ring around the Moon that can only be safely observed using solar eclipse safety glasses.

What happens during a hybrid eclipse is a bit of both.

The curvature of the Earth means that the apparent size of the Moon changes slightly, depending on where you watch the eclipse from.

If you are close to the sunrise point, then the Moon will appear slightly smaller in the sky compared to if you watch the eclipse from the middle of the path, where you will be slightly closer to the Moon, simply because Earth is a sphere.

The range is so narrow that hybrid solar eclipses will only occur four more times this century, in 2031, 2049, 2050 and 2067.

On 20 April 2023, the celestial mechanics are so precise that for a few seconds an annular solar eclipse will occur near to the start and end of the path.

Practically speaking, this won't make much difference at all to eclipse chasers because the points where annularity will occur in extremely remote areas of the Indian and Pacific oceans.

Where and when it's happening

There are five main locations for observing totality this Thursday, which will last for around a minute for those watching near the centreline of the path.

The most popular place will be Exmouth Peninsula (60 seconds from 11:29 am local time), a remote part of Western Australia that the path of totality briefly passes over.

It's about 1,270 km north of Perth and 1,400 km south of Broome, but it's here that has the best weather prospects.

Around 20,000 people are expected to descend on the tiny town, population of 3,000, mostly in makeshift campsites now being set up by the local authorities (organised tours sold out long ago).

A few thousand more eclipse-chasers will be in cruise ships off the coast, coming from Perth, Broome or Bali.

There will also be a few private yachts sailing around the Muiron and Sunday islands (49 seconds from 11:30 am local time), Lowendal Islands (63 seconds from 11:34 am local time) and the remote Ashmore Reef (63 seconds from 4:04 Universal Time).

The even more intrepid will travel to Timor-Leste, a country of 1.3 million between Indonesia and Australia and ringed by coral reefs teeming with marine life.

The epicenter for travellers will be the seaside villages Com (74 seconds from 1:21 pm local time) on the east coast and Beaco (74 seconds from 1:19 pm local time) on the south coast (where one organised tour is heading).

Finally comes West Papua, an even more remote island of 1.1 million where intrepid cruises will search for whales and birds of paradise with totality near Gorong Island (71 seconds from 1:40 pm local time).

An equally remote snorkelling trip will experience totality in the Banda Sea near FakFak (70 seconds from 1:44 pm local time).

How to observe the hybrid eclipse safely and how to watch online

Although the brief totality phase is perfectly safe to watch with the naked eye - that's why total solar eclipses are so popular - totality is always book-ended by a partial solar eclipse on either side, which must be viewed only through solar filters or eclipse glasses.

If you're not going to be in the path of totality for this Thursday's eclipse then you can watch online.

Timeanddate.com have confirmed they will be hosting a livestream of the 20 April 2023 hybrid solar eclipse on YouTube, which you can see below.

Eclipse-chasers unable to reach 2023's rather remote path of totality can at least look forward to the next total solar eclipse on 8 April 2024, when a totality of a whopping four minutes will be visible across North America from Mexico, the US and Canada.

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Rare hybrid solar eclipse seen over Indonesia and Australia

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To what lengths would you go to experience totality? In the early hours of this morning, adventurous eclipse chasers got the chance to see a very rare eclipse that was tricky to observe. On 20 April 2023 the Moon completely blocked the Sun, causing a rare sort of solar eclipse as seen from a narrow path through the southern hemisphere.

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To link with History and Religion the class discussed how eclipses were viewed before they were understood as scientific phenomena

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For the ancient Greeks, an eclipse was a sign that the gods were angry. The Vikings saw eclipses as a potential apocalypse. And the ancient Chinese apparently believed that an eclipse meant that a giant dragon was trying to devour the sun and that people needed to make as much noise as possible to scare the dragon away.

In his new book American Eclipse, David Baron writes about one in 1878. He says some American scientists fully understood what was coming. But many people in the path of totality were just plain terrified when the sun disappeared one July afternoon that year.

"They were absolutely convinced that this was Jesus returning, and this was Judgment Day," says Baron, who is also a former science editor at PRI's The World.

"As you can imagine, they fell to their knee, they ran to church and in one tragic instance, a father decided he wanted to get to the other side as fast as possible to avoid Armageddon and he ran home with an ax. He killed his young son. And then he took a razor, sliced his own throat and killed himself."

"That was 1878, at a time when total eclipses were predictable and viewed for the most part through a scientific lens. But for those who didn't know it was coming, they saw it as a truly religious experience."

And biblically speaking, they were right to be afraid. The Gospels describe a darkening sky on the day Jesus was crucified. For a cinematic version of the story, check out the 1961 film, "Barabbas." It was shot in Italy during an actual solar eclipse.

Astronomers dismiss the possibility that the crucifixion in early first-century Jerusalem was accompanied by an eclipse. But even now, some Christians fear that the upcoming solar eclipse on Aug. 21 could be a sign that the end of days is coming soon.

"I like to tell people who call and are anxious about these things, 'Just pray and be joyful in God,'" says Sister Mary Elizabeth, one of the five cloistered nuns at the Passionist Nuns' Monastery of the Immaculate Conception in Ellisville, Missouri.

She says the monastery has been getting some calls from Catholics worried about the eclipse. But Sister Mary Elizabeth says she tells them that she and the other nuns are quite confident this event is not a bad omen, nor is it a sign that the second coming of Christ is upon us.

"People like to call cloistered nuns because I think that people understand that we have a little bit of a better connection, if you want to say it that way, to what's going," she says.

Sister Mary Elizabeth adds that her mother superior is giving the nuns a free day on Monday to watch the eclipse from outside of the monastery, which is very close to the path of totality.

"At the noon hour, when the eclipse begins, we're going to get our lawn chairs," she says. "We're going to watch it. We plan on enjoying the whole awesome show from on high, from our Lord."
[Planning an eclipse party? Try some activities that are out of this world.]
In the Islamic tradition, there is a story about an eclipse taking place on the same day that Ibrahim, the son of the Prophet Muhammad, passed away. Muhammad didn't want people at that time to think that the eclipse was something to be worshipped, nor was it a sign of divine recognition of his son's death. Muhammad explained that this sort of celestial event was only a sign of God, not the life or death of a human being.

But even for those who do not consider themselves to be religious at all, witnessing a total eclipse can be something deep and profound. Author David Baron says it is truly an awe-inspiring experience.

"Today, there's so much in our lives that we can explain by science, and it's very easy to just understand it in an intellectual way. Now, you would think a total eclipse would be the same," Baron says. "But it is such an alien experience."

"It is so hard to really grasp what's going on and particularly this view of the heavens that looks like nothing you've ever seen before, the brain just can't accommodate it. And so, I do think it taps into the very same part of the brain that explains religion."

Baron says watching a total solar eclipse is sort of like standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon, multiplied by a factor of 1 million. He says it is about feeling just how small any one person is, and even one entire civilization, compared to the whole universe.

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When An Eclipse Meant The End Of The World

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For the ancient Greeks, an eclipse was a sign that the gods were angry. The Vikings saw eclipses as a potential apocalypse. And the ancient Chinese apparently believed that an eclipse meant that a giant dragon was trying to devour the sun and that people needed to make as much noise as possible to scare the dragon away.

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Solar Eclipse - Solar Eclipse video for kids

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Why Do We Have Different Seasons? | California Academy of Sciences

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NOS 7 & 10
E&S 1, 2 & 7
PW 3

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During the planning and execution of this learning outcome I used models several times to allow students hands on experience demonstrating to concepts being taught, this also aligns well with UDL principles

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Why Models are Advantageous to Learning Science

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The students created models of solar eclipses

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The students used oreos to display the phases of the moon

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The students used lamps and polystyrene balls on skewers to model solar and lunar eclipses *image from textbook*

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Exit tickets are something I used during the teaching of this learning outcome to gauge the students level of understanding and inform future planning and teaching.

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Demonstrates the correspondence between the moon's position in its orbit, its phase, and its position in an observer's sky at different times of day.

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Shows the geometry of the earth and sun over the course of a year, demonstrating how seasons occur. This simulator allows both orbital and celestial sphere representations of the seasonal motions.

Running this animation on your computer...

1. right-click to download eclipticsimulator.swf and eclipticsimulator.html to the same directory

2. open the html file in a browser to run the animation

Linking to this animation...

copy and paste the code below into your webpage or blog:

Putting this animation on your website...

1. upload eclipticsimulator.swf to the same directory as your webpage

2. copy and paste the following code into your webpage:

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Shows the geometry of the earth and sun over the course of a year, demonstrating how seasons occur. This simulator allows both orbital and celestial sphere representations of the seasonal motions. Running this animation on your computer... right-click to download eclipticsimulator.swf and eclipticsimulator.html to the same directory open the html file in a browser to run the animation Linking to this animation...