The sixth grader had been waiting months for this moment. Surrounded by screams of excitement, Baird shot up from her seat and gaped upward as the moon crossed between the sun and Earth, casting a shadow of darkness over her and her classmates.
"Oh my gosh," the child exclaimed. "What a miracle!"
Baird was one of thousands of students who filed into Wolff Municipal Stadium Monday morning to observe the long-awaited solar eclipse as part of a watch party hosted by the Witte Museum and DoSeum. For 150 San Antonio Independent School District students and their classes, the field trip was a prize for winning a poster contest during the annular solar eclipse in October.
Baird secured an invite for her class at the Young Women's Leadership Academy by writing a stand-out, space-theme poem. The day's cloudiness did little to dim her infectious enthusiasm.
"The world just changed!" she said after totality. "This darkness came over us, and we were all standing up and it was like we were in another dimension. It was so awesome!"
Space is an exciting topic for sixth-graders, Baird's teacher Joy Tuxhorn said. The girls at the all-female school are naturally inquisitive about astronomy and find joy in activities that explore their relationship with the universe, the teacher explained.
The eclipse was a chance for students to develop a core memory that would spark their curiosity even more.
"We've been trying to do a lot of cross-curricular activities with the eclipse like poetry, art, looking at the math and the angles," Tuxhorn said. "We touch on everything because someone's going to find an interest whether it's the science part, the creative part, looking back at the history."
In the row across from Tuxhorn's class, 6-year-old Harley Quinn smiled as the sunlight vanished. The kindergartener is completely blind but was able to experience the rare celestial event thanks to technology developed by Harvard researchers that translates changing light into sounds.
It's the perfect solution for Quinn, who loves music and wearing headphones, his teacher explained. During the watch party, the Franklin Elementary School student learned about the position of the sun and moon through braille graphics and 3D models.
"They say something like 95% of everything we learn is through vision, and he's not getting any of that so it's important for him to experience really anything and everything that he can," said Jo Ellen Fisk Cloyd, a teacher of students with visual impairments at Franklin Elementary School.
In addition to SAISD, there were also students from Southwest and Harlandale ISDs and a number of local charter schools at the event, which used the eclipse as a unique teaching opportunity to attract more students into science, technology, engineering and math subjects.
Interactive STEM stations were scattered throughout the West Side stadium offering a range of activities across grade levels like building solar system models, making eclipse viewers from recycled boxes and learning about coding programs. Students, staff and parent volunteers were also invited to write a message for a time capsule that won't be opened until 2343, the next time San Antonio will see another total solar eclipse.
Alia Mouh, SAISD science instructional specialist, said the district has been preparing for this day since the October eclipse, and that students have been able to feel "the passion for the sciences" on campus.
The spectacle comes as districts across Texas prepare to teach science curriculums differently under changes to state standards, known as Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. Mouh said the new learning model will empower students to use their imagination and creativity in science classes.
"We always try to support students to get them more into science and hopefully with the new model next school year and through the solar eclipse as well we will get them more interested in it," she said.
Keeping students on their toes has been a successful tool for eighth-grade science teacher Michael Martinez. Martinez, who has worked at Mission Academy for 13 years, said student-centered activities and instruction are key to keeping classes engaged.
"If I get bored, they're going to get bored," he said. "I like to keep things tactile and activity-based, just taking the concepts that I'm already supposed to teach and trying to find a fun way to do it."
Take his recent space science lesson, for example. Since his school didn't have the funds to buy new supplies, Martinez said he grabbed a bucket full of gravel from the schoolyard and poured it on the lab tables, tasking his students with constructing different galaxies.
"One of the things that actually correlated really well is that there's a lot of hydrogen gas and dust in space...and, well, there was a lot of dust from the rocks," he laughed.
For Martinez, the watch party was a way to attract interest in subjects like cosmology or astronomy. But even students without an affinity for space took full advantage of the chance to watch the Great American Eclipse in its path of totality.
"This has gotten so much hype I had to see what it's all about," said 17-year-old Larry Ramirez, a student from Cast Med High School clad in medical scrubs.
Plus, "it's cool that we don't need to be in class today," Cast Tech High School Student Rogelio Salinas, 15, noted.
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