RSS Feed

Ascension Parish residents Ben and Ashley Toman should be in Casper, Wyoming, or possibly at Carhenge in tiny Alliance, Nebraska, on Monday when the sun starts to disappear behind the moon — with prime viewing there shortly before 11:30 a.m. Central Standard Time.
They intend to have ringside seats in what will be among the prime viewing areas for the full solar eclipse, which will be visible in a swath of North America that day with much of the rest of the country seeing a partial eclipse.

The awe-inspiring astronomical alignment of the heavens has captured imaginations and sparked fears since the dawn of man, and Baton Rouge-area residents are preparing for the eclipse’s arrival in many ways.

Some like the Tomans are hitting the road for the fullest experience. A handful of Louisiana college physics students will be in Carbondale, Illinois, conducting experiments and making a first-ever type of video broadcast of the eclipse.

Back in Baton Rouge, Westdale Heights science teacher Mary Legoria will be preparing her students at the elementary school on College Drive in Baton Rouge when the eclipse reaches the Capital City shortly before noon.

Highland Road Park Observatory, meanwhile, expects crowds of schoolchildren and the curious to flock there. Even work-a-day folks on a busy Monday may take time off for a glimpse of the rare event.

“This is definitely one of those times where you’re going to become aware of the rest of the universe working around you,” said Ben Toman, 42, a musician and amateur astronomer.

Total solar eclipses happen when the moon passes between the sun and the Earth along just right section of the moon’s elliptical orbit. The moon crosses in front of the exact middle of the sun and casts a shadow on Earth, appearing to block out the entire disk of the sun. As the moon continues on its orbit, its shadow continues to move along the Earth.

Viewers on Earth experience this moving lunar shadow as an ominous black disk appearing to slowly consume the bright light of the sun and turn day into night.

Total eclipses cause animals to behave oddly, stars to appear during the day and light to take on a different quality. The down-is-up experience has given rise to myths for millenniums. The Chippewa fired flaming arrows into the sky in an attempt to relight the sun, while Peruvian tribes shot them to scare the creature thought to be attacking the sun, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

Dana Browne, LSU professor and associate chair of physics, said total solar eclipses happen about once a year somewhere in the world but are rare in any one place, usually occurring about once every 400 years in the same spot.

Not only does the alignment of Earth, moon and sun have to be perfect, but Browne and other scientists note that the sun and moon also happen to appear to be about the same size in our sky. When the moon covers the sun in a total eclipse, it does with a virtually perfect match, allowing viewers to see the sun’s corona, the outer atmosphere of wispy bands of super-heated plasma.

“It’s an accident that the sun and the moon are about the same size (in the sky),” Browne said.

According to NASA, the moon is 400 times smaller than the sun but also 400 times closer to the Earth than the sun.

The last time even parts of the United States experienced a total solar eclipse was on Feb. 26, 1979. Democrat Jimmy Carter was president, and “Star Wars” character Luke Skywalker was still a Tatooine youth learning to be a Jedi, like his father before him.

This time, the moon will cast at least some shadow across the entire continental United States — which means some portion of the sun is blocked out — but “totality” will happen only in a 70-mile-wide band stretching diagonally from Oregon to South Carolina, NASA maps show.

The last time a total eclipse has been seen from one end of the country to the other was on June 8, 1918, according to NASA.

Although a total eclipse won’t be seen anywhere in Louisiana, the state will experience 70 percent to 80 percent coverage of the sun.

The full lunar shadow — both the areas of the total and partial eclipse — will take about four hours to move across the United States, between 11:05 a.m. and 3:09 p.m. Central Standard Time, according to NASA.

The lunar shadow will take about three hours to cross Baton Rouge, according to Highland Road Park Observatory, lasting from 11:57 a.m. to 2:54 p.m. Peak coverage of the sun will happen around 1:29 p.m.

While it is safe to view only a total eclipse with the naked eye or with unfiltered cameras and binoculars, viewing any partial eclipse without protection can cause eye injury.

Mary Legoria has been working for months on the viewing plans for her school, Westdale Heights Academic Magnet. Legoria oversees the school’s science lab and is a stickler for safety.

With the potential for severe eye damage, Legoria is drilling WHAM students in the importance of safety.

Early on, she said, she turned to Chris Kersey, the manager of the Highland Road Park Observatory, for help.

Following Kersey’s advice, she went online, found a NASA-certified vendor and ordered enough safety glasses for students to come outdoors and watch the eclipse one grade at a time.

Some schools are buying them for all students to view at one time, she said, but Kersey warned her that not all kids are going to want to watch for that long.

Kersey also gave her a safety suggestion for the adults at the school: “You don’t want adults to have glasses; you want them looking at the kids.”

At St. Joseph’s Academy in Baton Rouge, the science teachers are still fine-tuning their game plan. Biology teacher Shelly O’Dowd said they are likely to buy some glasses, but are also considering making their own viewing devices.

“We’re talking about creating the pinhole projectors out of everyday materials or possibly creating them and printing them on the 3D printer,” O’Dowd said.

Toman, who is a member of the Baton Rouge Astronomical Society, has seen two partial eclipses but never a total one and so is headed northwest to see a total eclipse. He’s also playing the odds.

Toman said other society members determined that Casper and Alliance have the least statistical chance of cloud cover this time of year — 88 percent chance of no clouds in Casper. Combine good weather with the Tomans’ desire to see parts of the West, and you have a weeklong road trip to Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Tetons and elsewhere in a minivan stuffed with camping gear, telescopes and binoculars.

Toman said Alliance, three hours from Casper, and its auto-based replica of the ancient British wonder Stonehenge is his backup plan should Wyoming prove too cloudy.

Carbondale, Illinois, which will see another total eclipse in 2024 and has dubbed itself the “Eclipse Crossroads,” may just be “x” marks the spot.

Because of Carbondale’s long totality, students from LSU, McNeese State, Delgado Community College and Louisiana Tech will be launching two high-altitude balloons from SIU’s Saluki Stadium about noon Aug. 21 to conduct atmospheric measurements during the eclipse. One of the balloons will have a camera payload that will provide a live feed of the eclipse from 100,000 feet in the air and will be broadcast on NASA’s website at https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/.

Browne, the LSU physics professor, said students and faculty hope to video the shadow of the moon moving across the surface of the Earth in real time.

The aerial video is part of a NASA-sponsored project being conducted through the Louisiana, Montana and other space grant consortia.

The video will be the first time high-altitude footage of a total solar eclipse has been broadcast live, Montana consortium officials said in an LSU news release earlier this summer.

Many of Mary Legoria’s friends will be traveling north to stake out prime spots along the eclipse’s 14-state path, but she’s staying put.

When she does travel, as she did earlier this year to see a famous volcano in Washington state, her mind drifts back to Baton Rouge.

“I went to Mount St. Helens this year, and the first thing I think is, ‘I wish my kids were here,” Legoria told one of her classes Friday. “And when I say my kids, I’m talking about you guys.”

Not all her students will be at school, though.

Fifth-graders Aidan Johnson and Rini Cowart, both 10, are heading to different parts of Tennessee to see the total eclipse.

Cowart and Johnson said they learned a lot about eclipses in fourth-grade science. They will have safety glasses, as their teacher would advise, but Johnson points to an exception.

“When it becomes total, you can actually take your glasses off for some of it,” he said with a smile.

Cowart said her family’s approach to safety also includes their dog, Lucy.

“My whole family has glasses, including my dog,” she said.

I have read with interest the letters and articles on how to fix the TOPS program. The letters and articles were written by people who have been led to believe TOPS needs fixing and since their proposals are all aimed at reducing the cost of the program, the cost must be what needs fixing.

To understand why higher education costs families and the TOPS program so much, one need only look at the recent financial history of public higher education in Louisiana.

When the price of oil fell from over $100 a barrel to less than $40 a barrel, Gov. Jindal and our legislators were determined there would be no tax increases.

The solution to the state’s financial problem was to cut state general fund support to higher education by approximately $711 million per year. The public was told that higher education could make up the loss via tuition increases. In other words, they taxed the families with students in college.

The much higher tuition caused the cost of TOPS to increase from $123 million to $300 million but the cost to the state general fund is only $240 million. About $60 million of the TOPS cost comes from revenues to the tobacco settlement and earnings of the tobacco trust fund. Both were approved by voters. The net result was that the state general fund came out about $500 million to the good at great cost to higher education.

The academic requirements for a TOPS award are based on student performance in college. Correlation studies of graduation versus grade point average in the 19-unit core curriculum and composite ACT score demonstrated that resident high school graduates who earn a 2.5 GPA requirement in the rigorous core curriculum and earn a 20 on the composite ACT score graduate at a 50 percent rate from our public colleges. Raising the GPA requirement or the ACT requirement will reduce the number of TOPS students and the cost, but it will also reduce the number of college graduates each year. The educational attainment of Louisiana’s population ranks 46th for the bachelor’s degree and 47th for advanced degrees. There is a strong correlation between the educational attainment of a state’s population and the economy of a state not including natural resources. Massachusetts ranks first in bachelor’s and advanced degrees, and its economy is always in the top five states of the nation. Funding TOPS is an investment in the future economy of Louisiana.

Raising the TOPS standards will impact students from poor families and students from poor parishes. One of the great benefits of TOPS has been the dramatic increases in the number of minority students who earn a TOPS award. In the past 10 years the increase for Asians has been 27.7 percent for American Indians 194 percent, for African Americans 50.5 percent, for Hispanics 286 percent and for whites 0.29 percent. The minority increases are larger than reported because 3,594 entering freshman TOPS students elected not to report their race. These students tend to be minorities. Raising the standards for an award will severely reduce these minority gains which involve most of our poor and therefore are so important to our future. The results of ACT 587 provide parish results by high school and the TOPS report for 2016 shows that while poor parishes are improving, we still have much to be gained.

Finally, there is a misunderstanding about institutional cost versus student load. Under formula funding a student that earns 120 semester hours in four years costs the state the same as one who earns 120 semester hours in five years TOPS only pays for four years so the student would pay the tuition, fees and living expenses for the fifth year. Students who must work have a difficult time earning 24 semester hours per year, but their degree costs the state no more than the student who completes 30 semester hours per year. These tend to be the students who lose the TOPS award

Dr. James Wharton
Professor and chancellor emeritus
Louisiana State University

Gabriel Nelson and Emma Rose Schaff were crowned Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival Children’s Day King and Queen Aug. 13 following a random drawing held at the Bayou Vista Community Center Spray Park.
Nelson is the 12-year-old son of Joshua Nelson and Casi Rogers of Patterson. He is a seventh-grader at Berwick Junior High School and his favorite subject is computer science. He enjoys bowling, miniature golf, trains and elephants.
Schaff is the 8-year-old daughter of John and Melissa Schaff of Morgan City. She is a third-grader at Wyandotte Elementary in Morgan City and her favorite subject is math. She enjoys bike riding, dancing and listening to music.
The Children’s Day king and queen will be presented during the Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival Coronation on Aug. 26 at the Morgan City Municipal Auditorium. They will reign over the Children’s Day Activities that begin at 9 a.m. Sept. 2 in Lawrence Park in Morgan City. Children are encouraged to participate in a host of free field games, races and more.
Children’s Day sponsors are the family of Marion Bergeron and the late Oliver Bergeron and the Rotary Club of Morgan City.

A season of rain is as trying as a season of drought. Excess rain creates gooey soil, which is no fun for planting if you are a human and no fun for growing if you are a plant.
Roots need air, and day after day of rain can fill all the soil pores with water. The result: Roots have trouble absorbing nutrients and even water.
HELP FOR CLAY SOILS
Incessant summer rains rarely present a problem in soils that are well-cared for or sandy. In clay soils, waterlogging can be avoided if they are treated right. Adding heaps of organic materials such as compost, leaves and straw to clay soils causes the small clay particles to aggregate into larger units. Not walking on or working a clay soil also allows aggregation over time. Larger aggregates have larger spaces between them, so well-aggregated clay soils drain water well, just as water drains well from the large pores within sandy soils.
If conditions are really watery, construct raised beds for vegetables and flowers, and large mounds on which to plant trees and shrubs. Of course, soil used to build up the raised beds or mounds should drain well.
If soil conditions are worse still, move your plants somewhere drier.
PROBLEMS EVEN IN WELL-DRAINED SOILS
Alas, even with perfect drainage, a wet summer can bring on problems unrelated to the soil. Plants might “lodge,” for example: Growth is so lush that stems flop over because they can no longer support themselves. Corn plants standing neatly like soldiers one day might suddenly, even with calm air, bow low as if hit by gale-force winds.
Speaking of lush growth, abundant summer rains will also have weeds thriving.
And plants will experience less sunlight during a wet summer. Less sun means less fuel to make delicious tomatoes, peppers, apples and other fruits.
You could also blame rainy weather for poor fruiting of peppers and delayed fruiting of tomatoes. The effect of rain in these cases is indirect, the result of poor pollination.
Excessive rains also can bring on pests. Most fungi thrive in moisture. A dramatic demonstration of this would be the near-leafless crabapple trees frequently seen in wet summers; moisture-loving scab and rust fungi are mostly responsible for these trees’ fall from their spring glory.
Adequate spacing and pruning promote good air circulation so plants dry more quickly, lessening disease problems. Still, the threat is increased during a rainy year.
Crawling pests may or may not enjoy abundant moisture. Needless to say, wet conditions are heavenly for slugs and mosquitos.
TOO WET OR TOO DRY?
I prefer a dry summer to a wet one. The effects of drought can be mitigated by mulching and irrigating, but there’s little you can do when days of rain cause poor fruiting and an increase in diseases, slugs and mosquitoes.
Summer weather in many regions is variable, wet one year and dry the next, but there’s something to appreciate either way.