Eclipse Outreach by CSU's Society of Physics Students with Hathaway Brown Students at the Cleveland Public Library!

The upcoming 2024 Total Solar Eclipse in Cleveland has provided Cleveland State University's Society of Physics Students (SPS) with the opportunity to partner with Hathaway Brown (a local K-12 all-girls school) and the Cleveland Public Library (CPL) for a unique outreach-teaching experience. CSU's SPS—with a multi-year record of physics outreach in local schools (a.k.a Physics Fridays)—just got awarded its 12th Marsh W. White Award from the American Institute of Physics (AIP) for the project entitled "Outreach Totality: Eclipse-based Outreach-Teaching Experience."

This is a collaboration of CSU's SPS with the former CSU's SPS outreach coordinator, Ms. Janna Mino, currently the Director of Fellowships in Science Research and Engineering at Hathaway Brown (HB), the CSU physics lab coordinator, Tara Peppard, and the Cleveland Public Library staff. The goal of the project is to train a team of HB's 9-12 grade students on how to perform Eclipse outreach and facilitate combined outreach of HB students together with CSU's SPS to younger HB students and the general public at several branches of the Cleveland Public Library throughout the Spring of 2024.

In phase 1: "First Sighting," CSU's SPS went to HB on February 2, 2024, introducing Eclipse outreach activities to HB high school students and teaching them how to perform outreach for themselves. The HB outreach team, together with CSU's SPS, then performed Eclipse demos to the two classes of HB 1st graders (about 30 students).

Phase 2: "Outreach Totality," started on February 9, 2024, when the HB outreach team, together with the CSU's SPS, went to the South branch of the Cleveland Public Library and performed an outreach session for CPL for their after-school care program, library staff, and the general public. Four more trips of the HB outreach team together with CSU's SPS are planned in February and March to the following locations of the Cleveland Public Library: Sterling branch on February 16, Collinwood branch on February 23, Rice branch on March 1; and Rockport branch on March 22.

This project will not only educate and prepare Cleveland students and the general public for the upcoming Eclipse but will also provide students at Hathaway Brown with skills enabling them to perform their own outreach so we can further spread the fun of science to schools in northeast Ohio.

If you are interested in participating in an event or volunteering, please contact k.streletzky@csuohio.edu. 

The financial support of this program comes from the Physics Department and the SPS Marsh W. White Award.

Many thanks to the project coordinators: Kiril Streletzky (SPS Faculty Advisor, CSU); Tara Peppard (Laboratory Operations Manager, CSU); Janna Mino '15 (Director of Fellowships, Hathaway Brown); Patrick Herron (SPS President and Outreach Coordinator, CSU); Bernadette Lemak (Project Coordinator Outreach and Programming Services, CPL), and Marina Marquez (Manager, The People's University, CPL).

Special thanks to CSU student volunteers: Grace Miller, Jacob Forester, Patrick Herron, Jordan Miller, Collin Douglas, James Taton, Jeremiah Greene, and former CSU outreach coordinator Jim Pitchford '11.