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Senior Maya Parker gazes at the sky for a total solar eclipse April 8, 2024, in front of Saginaw High School. (Jacob Sanchez | Fort Worth Report)
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Maya Parker, a senior at Saginaw High School, stood in disbelief as everything around her dimmed.

“Does it look like you’re wearing sunglasses?” astronomy teacher Chris Brown asked Maya and her classmates.

The 17-year-old whipped out her solar glasses, placed them on her face and turned her head up.

“It’s moving!” Maya said, quickly taking her glasses off and propping them in front of her iPhone camera lenses to take a photo.

The moon had begun its celestial trek to cover the sun. For one minute and 46 seconds at Saginaw High School, Maya and her classmates experienced a total solar eclipse April 8. 

The entire student body gathered outside the school. Everyone had solar glasses, thanks to a donation from the Perot Museum of Science and Nature. 

A year and a half went into planning lessons and getting glasses for every student, teacher and staff member in Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD, said Theresa Parisi, who coordinates science curriculum for secondary campuses.

Astronomy is a tough subject to teach. Jason Giles, who teaches astronomy at Saginaw High, uses models of the solar system. Sometimes he has students use household objects to demonstrate the scale of space.

Nothing came close to a hands-on activity — until the eclipse.

“They’re going to learn more about it in one minute and 46 seconds than they did during the eclipse lessons,” Giles said, with a chuckle.

Outside of Saginaw High, everyone’s eyes focused on the sky. Wisps of clouds brushed the blue sky.

Brown reassured students that they would see the totality. If not, he joked, they could travel to North Dakota to see a total eclipse — in 2044.

As the eclipse reached totality, clouds blocked the sun.

“Keep watching. Keep watching. Don’t take your eyes off of it,” Brown said. “You’re not going to get long.”

The clouds steadily moved. No break just yet. 

Brown pointed to a bright dot in the darkened sky. 

“That’s Venus up there,” he said, whipping his finger to the east. “Jupiter’s over there.”

The clouds hustled to the west. Brown told his students to get ready. They would not have long to see the total eclipse.

Shouts of joy echoed around Saginaw High School. 

“We got it, y’all,” Brown said. 

He told students to look toward the bottom of the sun. There, they saw a prominence, an astronomically giant flare of plasma erupting from the sun.

For just a few seconds, it was safe to look at the sun, thanks to the moon.

Saginaw High School students watch the total eclipse of the sun from a field on April 8, 2024. (Jacob Sanchez | Fort Worth Report)

“Glasses on!” Brown repeated two more times. “High-five your neighbor because that was super cool.” 

About 30 minutes before the eclipse, junior Zoe Rorie and her classmates watched a livestream of the eclipse in Mexico. Giles bounced around the screen, pointing out what students should watch for when they witness the phenomenon.

Zoe, 16, leaned over to her friend. 

“This is like an astronomy teacher’s Super Bowl,” she said.

Jacob Sanchez is an enterprise journalist for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.