METAIRIE, La. (WGNO) — The Jewish Community Day School invited NASA structural analysis engineer Ninoshka Friedman to explain and answer students’ questions about the total eclipse.
“Every day, ‘Are we going to see the eclipse? Are we going to see the eclipse?’ I’m like, ‘Yes, we’re going to see it,'” said JCDS science teacher Malia Batiste when talking about her students. “I mean, they do more research than I do to learn about it.”
A group of first through fourth graders spent the afternoon learning about the astronomical event while also trying to catch a glimpse somewhere between the thick clouds.
At peak viewing time, around 1:49 p.m., students headed out to Bart Field to witness the spectacle in its full glory.
“I just think about all the work we spent prior to the weeks building up, to learn about the eclipse, and then hours a day, having some of them say, ‘We see it, we see it,'” said Batiste. “It was so exciting.”
The experience was a humble reminder for Friedman, who, years ago, decided to become an aerospace engineer after viewing a lunar eclipse with their mother.
“Since that that day, I said, ‘I want to go to the moon, I want to see what’s there,'” said Friedman. “So, eventually, through my career, I majored in outer space engineering, and now, I’m building a moon rocket at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility.”
Friedman hopes days like these will inspire children to dream big.
“Science and space science is accessible for everybody and for all ages. I’m a rocket scientist, but I can bring these concepts to them, and they were able to understand them. So that, you know, science is not as intimidating as it might have been for them at the beginning,” said Friedman.
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