In less than a week, a once-in-a-lifetime event occurs as a solar eclipse crosses the United States on a path from Texas to Maine.
“And at hundreds of schools across Texas on April 8, students will gaze at the open sky for a few minutes while peeking through paper eclipse viewers with a familiar lone star face on it—the Buc-ee’s beaver,” reported Houston Public Media.
The Houston Museum of Natural Science launched an initiative to send solar eclipse educational tools free of charge to participating districts around Texas, including lesson plans, classroom activities, virtual programs, and educator training materials. Hundreds of boxes toting eclipse kits have already landed at schools across the state in preparation for the big event. Buc-ee’s sponsors the kits.
There are about 1,200 school districts in Texas, and most have inquired about receiving eclipse kits from the museum, Nicole Temple, the museum’s vice president of education told HPM.
“This has been a colossal effort for over a year,” Temple told HPM. “For the most part, we are mailing them to school districts who then distribute them. Every district in our region has picked them up.”
“At Buc-ee’s, we believe all children should have the opportunity to enjoy, experience, and learn about our solar system, which is why we are proudly supporting the Houston Museum of Natural Science in their supplying K-12 Texas schools with free solar eclipse viewing kits,” Jeff Nadalo, a Buc-ee’s spokesperson, said.
Read more about the eclipse and how convenience stores are preparing for the wave of viewers passing through in NACS Magazine’s “Total Eclipse of the Mart.”