By Sarah Hall
Editor
When the solar eclipse traversed the nation, Liverpool High School Earth Science teachers Drew Calderwood, Eric Grosso and Jason Williams knew they couldn’t just don a pair of eclipse glasses and watch it from their backyards.
With only 68 percent of the sun’s rays blocked by the moon here in Central New York, if they wanted to really get the full eclipse experience, the educators were going to have to travel.
That’s why the afternoon of Aug. 21 found Calderwood, Grosso and Williams, along with a friend, Joe Gallo, deep in Grand Teton National Park, right in the path of totality.
“You have to experience it,” Williams said. “It’s more than just seeing it… It’s a natural phenomenon, but it feels supernatural.”
The trip started to come together this February, when Calderwood approached Williams and Grosso about chasing the eclipse out west. Calderwood had originally planned to see the eclipse in Nashville with his family, but after talking it over with his wife, decided to go on his own. As he began to plan, however, he thought it might be more enjoyable to have company—like his two colleagues.
Williams, too, had been considering a trip to Nashville or Charleston to witness the spectacle.
“It’s been on my radar since August of 2009 when a Regents question appeared about the solar eclipse,” Williams said. “So since 2009, I’ve been thinking that I wanted to be somewhere in this path of totality… this is something I need to be a part of for this total solar eclipse. So, I knew I was going somewhere.”
When Calderwood approached him with the idea to travel out west, Williams jumped at the chance.
“We’re looking at the maps, and Drew had sort of a rough outline of [the path of the eclipse],” he said. “And I was like, “Does it go through the Grand Tetons?’ So, we looked it up, and sure enough, the totality went right over the Grand Tetons, which is a place… that I didn’t really think I’d have the opportunity to visit, but seeing that this would be a perfect excuse for this once in a lifetime experience and once in a world kind of landscape. So, I was like, ‘Yeah man, we got to do this.’”
The next day, they approached Grosso, who had originally intended to hike part of the Appalachian Trail over the summer.
“The Appalachian Trail’s always going to be there,” Grosso said. “I can go back another time. This is almost a once-in-a-lifetime event.”
For the next six months, the three teachers planned their trip, ordering topographical maps, planning their 26-mile hiking route, figuring out an exit plan in case the weather didn’t cooperate and they needed to find a new place to go to watch the eclipse and mapping out a path that would put them in the right place every day to keep them on track.
Calderwood and Grosso began their trek on Aug. 16, meeting up with Williams and Gallo in the Grand Tetons on Aug. 18. The hike was taxing — “it was the most grueling thing I’ve ever done in 53 years of life,” Calderwood said — taking the men over rocks and up steep hills, through trails that hadn’t been maintained in decades. But it was worth it to experience the two minutes of the total eclipse.
“It’s almost as if your senses are heightened,” Calderwood said. “The birds stopped flying. They stopped chirping… We felt the temperature drop significantly.”
“I couldn’t move,” Williams said. “Once the eclipse happened, you were just glued to it.”
“Talking about it as an Earth Science teacher without having seen it is going to be different than talking about it when we have seen it,” Calderwood said. “We can show them pictures and tell them stories.”
Calderwood said the teachers’ excursion is representative of the dedication many of the district’s staff have for their chosen field.
“I think this is what this trip was about for us — feeling that passion,” he said. “Passion is one of the reasons we’re in this room, [to have the ability] to do cool things and then share that with your students.”
Indeed, Calderwood, Grosso and Williams said they’ll be incorporating their experience into their lessons.
“Our astronomy unit is at the end of the year, so we have some time to figure out how, but we’d like to develop something around this,” Calderwood said.
He said vast amounts of data from the eclipse will soon be available to teachers, which he and his colleagues will incorporate into their lesson plans.
But they’ll also talk about the economy of the eclipse, different mythologies behind it and more — all incorporating their own photos and experiences.
“Showing them all of that [will] bring it home, kind of,” Grosso said. “I think a lot of kids… just think, ‘Whatever, I just need to know this for school,’ but when you can relate to it like that and bring it home, that’s when that learning actually kicks in, and they’re like, ‘Oh, wow, this is kind of cool.’”
The teachers are also excited about the solar eclipse that will take place on April 8, 2024 — Central New York is in the path of totality for that one.
“The total eclipse is an opportunity of a lifetime, but in seven years, that’s going to be the opportunity of our Earth Science teaching careers,” Grosso said.
“We’re hoping to get a number of buses to bring students to get ready to go somewhere we could spend a significant amount of time in totality and have some flexibility,” Williams said. “If the forecast isn’t looking good, we could drive as far as Cleveland if we have to, or wherever… I haven’t really studied the path yet, but I think it’s really important that we get into the path of totality with students.”
All three agreed they wanted their students to behold the total eclipse, not just for the educational value, but for the almost spiritual experience.
“It’s surreal,” Calderwood said. “You can’t understand totality. You can see the images on the news and stuff, but… it’s a five senses thing.”
Williams agreed.
“I think a partial eclipse is really exciting for an Earth Science teacher or someone who’s into astronomy,” he said. “I think a total solar eclipse is exciting for anybody.”
