Monday, Apr. 8 at 1:28 pm students leave their seventh-hour class to gather on the football field and watch their second solar eclipse. During the first eclipse in 2017, students witnessed full totality, meaning they were able to watch as day turned shortly into night and were able to look directly at the sun without it affecting their eyes. This time the eclipse could only be seen through eclipse glasses due to the area only being able to see roughly 83% totality. “I liked watching the eclipse this year because it was a new perspective. It shows the beauty of imperfect things. The sun and moon rarely overlap each other but in doing so they create something fascinating,” junior Addyson Alderman said.

   A partial solar eclipse was set for Mon Apr. 8, 2024. Students were dismissed from class between seventh and eigth to watch the eclipse on Hyvee Field which culminated from 1:28 to 2:28pm. 

   “What I loved about the solar eclipse was being able to go out on the field with my friends and being able to watch it,” sophomore Sarah Barnes said.

   Liberty got 89 percent coverage while places two hours away like Springfield got a full eclipse.  Other people traveled to places like Indianapolis, Branson and Arkansas to see totality.

   “I traveled to Springfield with my kids to watch the eclipse where we got to see totality,” chemistry teacher Stuart Jorgenesen.

   The last eclipse Liberty has was seven years ago and was total coverage. This was when all the students were in elementary or middle school. It was a total eclipse unlike this time’s partial eclipse.

  “What I remember from the last eclipse was watching it on the black top of my elementary school and it going dark out of nowhere and hearing all the animals like crickets and owls,” Barnes said. 

   All the students went out on to the field after seventh hour for an hour to watch the eclipse. There were people in the middle of the field, on the bleachers and the sideline of the field. Others watched it in their back yard with their families or went to a park or open area to watch it happen.

   “Next eclipse is crazy to think about because I will probably have a family by then, so my pla n for the next eclipse is to watch it with them where it has 100% totality,” senior Luke Ripper said.          

   The next solar eclipse will be Aug 16. 2026 and this will happen over Europe. While the next eclipse over the United States is suspected to be in 21 years shortly after 2045 which will mean all of the students will be in their late thirties.

Solar Eclipse