Solar eclipse more than a teaching moment for students at Lyon's Creek Middle School
COCONUT CREEK - For Emily Johnson, one of the bright spots of her life is educating her students.
"I'm lucky, I'm grateful and I'm just so hyped to be here and I'm really, really excited," said Johnson.
Johnson is a 6th grade science teacher at Lyon's Creek Middle School, and Monday, she hit a major milestone alongside her class as she taught them about the solar eclipse in real time.
With clipboards and pencils in hand, Miss. Johnson's class watched all afternoon as the moon gradually covered part of the sun.
"What we've been writing on our paper is what we're seeing right now and like what we're observing on these glasses," said student Victor Canedo.
Solar eclipse glasses were given to every student, allowing them to check out the eclipse as it was happening.
"It looks like a giant banana," said Chase, a student in Miss. Johnson's class.
Administrators tell us they hope the hands-on, or rather eyes-on, lesson by teachers like Miss. Johnson will encourage these students' futures.
"They're all about creating these real-world experiences for our students and really sparking that love of STEM fields such as this," said Vernicca Wynter, principal of Lyon's Creek Middle School.
Some students, already setting the sky as the limit for their future careers.
"I want to be an astronomer to figure out more about stars and space," said Canedo.
Others, tell us the solar eclipse will be something they'll never forget.
"What I'm going to really remember is that I'm experiencing this with my friends and my teacher," said Nicole Santana.
It'll be decades before the next eclipse happens, but this lesson is one that these students say will shine in their memories for a lifetime.
"Definitely like once in a lifetime and it's going to be really cool to see it in my future career in science," said Canedo.
The next solar eclipse won't happen for another 20 years when these students are in their 30s.