Shadow edges became very sharp as the eclipse approached totality. photo by Dominic Stephens

On Monday, August 21, one of the most impressive events of the decade took place. This was the day when a total solar eclipse passed over the United States. Those living in Nashville were lucky enough to witness it.

The eclipse started off in North west America and made its way south east towards South Carolina. Because of this path, we here in Nashville were right in the middle of the umbra, the area that gets to experience a total eclipse. As a result, we here at Nashville Christian were treated to a day of celebration of such a cool event.

The Nashville Christian Eclipse day celebrations kicked off at around 11 a.m. Everyone from K-12 was invited to come spend the afternoon at Keeton stadium and witness the event together. Hundreds of students were there, along with the parents, grandparents, and other relatives of those students.

Everyone was treated to a special cookout meal with cosmically named items like meteor burgers, Sunchips, shooting stars and space balls, Sunny D, and Moon Pies.

By the time people were done eating, the first signs of the eclipse were starting to come into effect. People were encouraged to glance up every so often at the progress of the sun using their eclipse glasses. These were also given out for free by the school.

NCS Biology teacher Dr. Jeffery Vore talked about how people stayed safe while watching the eclipse. He said, “View it by casting it onto something else. To look directly at it, you had to have the eclipse glasses on except during totality, which was only 67 seconds.”

When talking about seeing the moon first partially cover the sun, Jordan Williams, a junior,  said, “I was like, ‘Wow, somewhere out in space, the moon is really covering the sun.’ It’s hard to put into words.”

By 1 o’clock excitement for totality was buzzing. By this time, everything seemed to get darker, though the sky was still blue. Shadows began to look sharp.

Right before totality the energy throughout the stadium was at an all time high. It began to look like night time and cicadas could be heard all around. When totality hit, everyone removed their glasses in awe of the brilliant ring surrounding the black moon

Riley Griffin, a junior, talked about how he felt once they saw the fully dark moon. He said, “I was amazed and perplexed at how dark it got outside.”

After totality, time seemed to start again and things began to brighten up. The stadium started to clear out as the people went home or back to class. Overall, the event was a great success and a great way to watch the eclipse.