(upbeat music) - I'm Steve Kendall.

Welcome to The Journal.

The April Eighth solar eclipse will be, for many people, a once in a lifetime event.

So what should we expect, and as we go through the show today, what are some of the historical and cultural impacts?

We're joined in our first segment by Dr. Andrew Layden, who is the chair of the Physics and Astronomy Department at Bowling Green State University.

And welcome to Journal.

Thank you for lending us all your expertise here.

As I said, for most of us, the next one's not until 2099, so the odds are that probably a few of us aren't gonna be around then.

You've seen multiple eclipses in all different places around the world, and we've talked about what we think from a logistical point of view with a lot of people, the emergency manning people, about what's going to happen on their end.

When you've traveled and done eclipses, seen them in other places, were people different in different places about how they viewed them in terms of what they thought, how they reacted, that kind of thing?

- Well, that's a good question.

Yes and no, but part of it was where I was traveling and who I was traveling with.

Part of that experience.

So my first eclipse was with a group of astronomers.

We were all in Budapest, Hungary for a conference, an astronomy conference that was scheduled around the eclipse.

So being with astronomers gives you a...

There wasn't surprise or awe, we were just all excited about it and enjoyed it.

And we had a telescope and we had the right equipment and we had to drive around a little bit to find clear weather.

So that's one of the big issues that everybody will face in April is will it be clear here?

Do I want to drive somewhere else or try to get somewhere else in the last minutes before the eclipse?

I'm not sure that's the best idea.

I think you might just want to take what you get.

But that was one experience.

Another experience was when I was working in Chile in South America, and the eclipse path was not where I was exactly, so I had to schedule a flight and landed in a coastal city, think sort of a San Francisco.

It was foggy down at ground level.

So I was wondering, how am I gonna get above the fog to see the eclipse?

And it turns out, I bumped into the pilot of my plane while I was checking into a hotel, and he said, come with me.

So we got up at four in the morning and got in his rental car, and we switched back up onto the Alta Plana, which is about 14,000 feet.

That's about Pike's Peak.

So I did that one kind of in the middle of nowhere with mountains and volcanoes going up to 20,000 feet with the pilot and two stewardess and myself.

And that was a different experience in part because it was just beautiful and lonely.

- [Steve] Yeah, and you weren't doing any analytical academic study of like, oh, let's look at... - [Andrew] Yeah, just enjoying the sites.

- [Steve] Which is what they were doing too.

And how lucky you were to have that opportunity that somebody said, hey, I got you covered on this.

I know how to get above the fog level here.

- [Andrew] It was a brilliant experience.

So that's part of the story, is part of your experience will be who you're with, who you choose to be with and what you bring along with you in terms of planning, expectations.

The last eclipse that I went to was the 2017 eclipse, and I'm sure many people experienced that here from here in Ohio where it was a partial eclipse, and we all used our eclipse glasses to safely view the eclipse.

- [Steve] The oh so the stylish eclipse glasses.

- [Andrew] Right.

And I, on the other hand, kind of went out of my way.

I drove with my son down to Tennessee, met some other friends down there, and saw totality down there.

So that's part of the experience too, is the travel, the drive.

And in all three cases it turned out it was clear.

So we were lucky.

April is not always the best time to get clear weather in Ohio, but we are planning an eclipse event, as I'm sure we will all know about more as as time goes on, but we're aiming to have lots of different activities going on at the BGSU football stadium for entertainment and education to keep people busy while the partial phases of the eclipse are going and we're using our eclipse glasses, and then the beauty is when totality happens, and we get to see that corona around the really, I can only describe it as profoundly black moon.

The contrast is so beautiful and striking.

And that's where I'm hoping this experience will be different for me in that I'll be in a stadium full of thousands of people-- - [Steve] Thousand of people, sure.

- [Andrew] and we'll all go, ooh at the same time.

- [Steve] At the same time.

That's a good point because the other ones have been more smaller groups, more personal or that kind of thing.

And you're right, that's the one thing that I think we forget.

We're gonna be focused on looking up at the sky, but you make a good point that it's the experience all around that, the other pieces, who you're with, how you got there, that kind of thing, that will make it more memorable to you that way.

When you look at it from an academic point of view, are you ever jaded by any of them that you've seen?

Do you go like, well, you've seen one eclipse, you've kind of seen them all because this is your profession, that's what you do?

For the rest of us, this is like, oh, as you said, everybody's gonna go, wow, look at that.

You're able to get over that hump of not analyzing it as that, but just enjoy the actual view.

- [Andrew] Yeah.

I think astronomers, like most scientists, are lovers of natural beauty.

And this is one of the just strangest and most unexpected experiences you can have.

And I don't think it ever gets boring.

I've talked with eclipse chasers who get hooked and travel around the world so that every year or two they can go see an eclipse somewhere and photograph it and experience the cultures around them as they're there.

Make it part of a larger vacation so that they're tourists as well as eclipse chasers.

And that can be a fabulous experience as well.

- Now obviously, you're teaching, we've got just a moment here, when you talk to your students about this, are you able to get them as involved as we all like to think we're going to be?

Like this is a unique opportunity, please don't just go, ah, whatever.

Yeah, yeah.

- [Andrew] Yeah.

I hope so.

(laughing) We're running a couple of small seminar classes this semester to help people get excited to train them to be volunteers and eclipse ambassadors at the stadium for the eclipse event and to help them build excitement across campus, right?

We try to build a wave and then have the wave grow from this core.

- [Steve] And as you said, there are lots of activities, people can, of course, obviously on the academic site, you can find all the information, that kind of thing, and then the university, of course too, has other sites as well to make sure people don't miss out on any of the opportunities.

But thank you so much for talking about it, because obviously not all of us travel around the world to watch these, so it's interesting the experience you talk about in different places with different people, different cultures, even just getting to them the way you get to them, as opposed to, a lot of us will walk out our front door and look up at the sky.

Other people will travel, as we know, great distances to get here.

And that's one of the big concerns.

How many people come here from outside the area and what will that mean to all of our systems.

But yeah.

Well, thank you so much Dr. Layden for giving us all that information and appreciate your insight into this and another perspective on what's gonna happen on April Eighth.

So thank you so much.

- Thank you very much.

- We'll be back in just a moment here on The Journal.

We're talking about the April Eighth eclipse.

Back in just a moment.

Thank you for staying with us here on The Journal.

Our guest in this segment is Dr. Kate Dellenbusch from the Bowling Green Department of Physics and Astronomy.

And you were with us in December, we talked about the eclipse and some of the other things, but obviously one of the important parts of the things that you do is the planetarium at the university.

And probably some people know it exists, a lot of people don't, probably, but you've been doing events in there related to this.

So talk a little about planetarium activities around the eclipse, but it's a year round activity there too, so it's not just about the eclipse.

- Yeah, thanks for having me back again.

Yeah, the planetarium, it's mostly during the academic year, but we will probably be expanding that a little bit into summer soon.

And we have programming both in terms of normal plantarium programming, where we've got regular shows, several each week, and then with the eclipse coming up, that will include some eclipse specific planetarium shows.

And then also really special this semester we have a lecture series that started a couple of weeks ago, and it's a public lecture series, free and open to the public to come and learn more about many of the connections, kind of the human experience surrounding eclipses.

So we've got 11 weeks of talks.

So a lot of great speakers and kind of from astronomy to music and history, literature and just a diverse range of things.

- Yeah, because I know we talked the last time in December.

We got into a lot of specifics about the speed and all of that sort of thing, but one of the things, and you make a good point, talking about the fact that eclipses are, as Dr. Layden said in the other segment, they're an experience.

For a lot of people it's not a science situation.

You guys look at it from a professional perspective.

For the rest of the public, it's like a very unique event and we're in awe of it.

Not that you guys aren't, but the reality is, for the layman, it's something incredibly spectacular, and you're trying to kind of lend the context of all of that with these opportunities at the planetarium.

- [Kate] Yeah, absolutely.

So throughout human history, eclipses were, for a long time kind of mysterious events and probably terrifying events as the sun suddenly unexpectedly disappeared-- - [Steve] Disappeared.

- -for a few minutes, and then people didn't know if it was gonna come back again.

So, like, there were stories of people beating drums and things like that to scare the dragon away from eating the sun.

And we see this across many cultures, these types of things.

So even today, I think it's often an emotional experience for people, even when we know it's coming and kind of why it's happening, it still is a strange experience.

- [Steve] And it will, yeah, like we don't about the sun not coming back.

- [Kate] Right, yep.

- [Steve] Right, right.

Now, when you talk about this and you do things in the planetarium, what are some of the specific things you show people about this or talk about the greater aspect of astronomy in general, right?

- [Kate] Yeah.

So the planetarium is a special kind of theater, really, where we can show essentially movies, full videos up on the dome of the planetarium.

And they're typically science oriented, usually astronomy, but we have a range of programs, so not everything is purely astronomy.

There's cultural programs as well as biology and things like that.

So this semester we've got a range of things from, right now we're currently showing a program about dark matter and the search for dark matter.

- [Steve] Now, what is dark matter?

- [Kate] Sure.

Well, that's a good question.

There's probably a Nobel Prize for whoever figured that out, for sure.

- [Steve] Who'd figure that out, okay.

Well, we'll figure it out by the end of the show today.

- [Kate] Right.

- [Steve] Okay.

- [Kate] Yeah, much of the mass in the universe seems to be something that doesn't give off light, so we can't directly detect it, yet there are signs that there's something with mass there, and so this is a big puzzle in astronomy of what, really, that might be what type of subatomic particle perhaps it might be.

So that's currently a show that's running and coming up soon though, as we get closer to the eclipse, we'll have a program that talks about eclipses, some of the things that we've been talking about kind of for a while here as we approach the eclipse, but if people want to learn more or see it in a different way, I encourage folks to come to the planetarium show for that.

And then towards the end of the semester, we'll be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the BGSU Planetarium.

- [Steve] Oh, okay, great.

- So we're gonna look back to the beginning with the first show that Dr. Dale Smith presented at the planetarium, a program about NASA to that point in 1984.

- [Steve] Wow.

Yeah.

And that had to be an incredible thing too, because we're still, now, we consider that early in the space program, and at the time, that was incredibly cutting edge, not that it isn't still.

When you look at the way technology has evolved for the planetarium, we talked a little about this in December, back then it was probably 16 millimeter film or something.

So, what are the systems?

People will get an incredible experience when they go in there now, both sound and visual.

- [Kate] Yeah.

So we've got full surround sound in the planetarium for most of the programs and full video that's projected up onto the dome with a couple of projectors.

- [Steve] Yeah.

Now, the other part of this too, is that there's the planetarium.

And I think that a lot of people believe that's the observatory, but that's in a different location.

So talk about the fact that probably when you go to look at the sky, look at the stars, it's not done from the planetarium, it's done from the observatory, and that's located nearby, but not in the planetarium.

So talk a little about that.

- [Kate] Right, yeah.

In the planetarium itself, we do show the sky as well as these kind of movies.

So most shows, I'll talk a little bit about what's up in the sky that night.

We've got sort of a space and time machine with the plantarium so we can jump ahead to that evening or anytime in the past and the future.

And then the actual telescope that we have on campus, our main one is up on the roof of the same building in a dome.

So we've got the big dome down on the ground, ground level is the plantarium and the smaller dome up on the roof is the telescope.

- [Steve] Yeah, now, how many people can you accommodate at the big telescope?

Legally and safely.

- [Kate] Right.

Well, I guess it depends how many elevator rides we take up to the roof.

(laughing) But yeah, I mean, it's usually not an issue for the folks who are coming to the planetarium to show to stick around and head up to the roof with us.

- [Steve] Oh, okay, yeah.

And that's just part of that experience that you do.

When you look at that to bringing people in, are there things that people, after they've watched one of the presentations, are there questions that ever surprise you about what people ask?

I mean, I've probably asked questions that surprise you when you've been on the program before, but are there things that people say, I've got a question about this, and you can then expand on what they've seen or maybe get them, steer them in the correct direction about what they really just saw and what they should understand about it?

- Yeah, I've been getting a lot of questions from folks lately at the planetarium shows, and that's great, it's always fun to interact with the public and help teach them about astronomy.

And usually the questions are really good.

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah.

Because you know, I think I talked later on when you were on before about the fact that for some reason when I scheduled my astronomy class when I was in college, I did it eight o'clock on a Monday morning, which for a lot of people isn't exactly prime time to be awake to understand all of that.

But yeah, it is a unique thing.

When you're looking at things to present at the planetarium, what are some of the things you take into consideration?

Say, we think this would be a good presentation, this would be something that people would be interested in.

Do you kind of kick that around in a group, or is that all your decision?

- [Kate] Yeah, it's my decision.

- [Steve] Yeah, okay.

- So yeah, I've been trying to think about is there something that we're hearing about maybe in the news?

So I think with hopefully coming up soon, there'll be the new missions to the moon, so maybe I'll try to include programming about the past space program, things like that.

- [Steve] Bring people up to speed.

- [Kate] Try and make tie-ins to things that are going on or might be of interest to people.

- [Steve] Yeah, because one of the things that we did at the end of the segment, but people forget we haven't been to the moon since the 70s, which now, for a lot of us, that's still fresh, but for most people, that is history.

That is ancient history in a way.

So that's a good opportunity to bring people up to speed on how we got to where we are today, and that's a good thing.

So thank you so much for being on again, Dr. Dellenbusch.

- [Kate] Thank you.

- [Steve] Thank you very much.

At any time you want to come on, let us know.

- [Kate] Great.

- [Steve] We're always happy to talk about what's going up there in the sky.

Back in just a moment here on The Journal.

Thank you for staying with us on The Journal.

Our guests in this segment are Dr. Emily Freeman Brown from the Bowling Green State University School of Music, and Kelly Pheneger, the educational outreach director here at WBGU-PBS.

Dr. Brown, one of the things I thought was unique, I was looking at all the list of speakers and both Dr. Layden and Dr. Dellenbusch talked about the fact we have this entire series going on related to the eclipse, and I thought it was interesting, yours is about the connection between nature and music and how composers throughout history have used nature scenes, nature as an inspiration to create things.

And that's not something that we've connected to the eclipse in anyway.

So talk about that presentation and the connection that you were talking about there.

- [Emily] Sure, sure.

First of all, thank you very much for having me on.

- [Steve] Sure.

- It originated for me in that I took the concert series that we're doing with the BG Philharmonia this year and picked a theme, nature, weird and wonderful.

So all of our concerts are related to this.

So we've been looking at this idea of the relationship between music and nature throughout the whole season, which has really been a lot of fun for the orchestra, and I think for our audiences too.

And that relationship, of course, has to do with the fact that music is based on natural laws and yet what you're bringing to our attention is what humanity has done, taking those natural laws and creating music.

- [Steve] Yeah.

I thought it was just because we know of composers, we know of compositions-- - [Emily] Yes, absolutely.

- [Steve] that literally say the Four Seasons or whatever, but we just take that for granted.

We don't realize that somewhere someone drew from something they saw visually or experienced the sound, the sight, whatever, to then take that, as you said, transpose that into actual music and composition.

- [Emily] Sound, yes.

It's really interesting because one of the considerations, one of the things I'm thinking about is, would a person think that a piece like Clair de lune by Debussy, would they think that that was Moonlight if they hadn't seen the title?

And what was the composer aiming for?

Was it an emotional reaction or exactly what?

So those are some of the things we'll be talking about during my talk at the planetarium.

- And that's interesting too, because probably we all visualize or think of something different, even though the composer said, oh, this is what I'm going for-- - [Emily] Absolutely.

- -but then actual true composition lets the listener-- - [Emily] Have their own experience.

- -interpret it themselves, yeah.

Interpret it themselves.

And at the same time, it's an abstract connection, but it can be very literal too though, because they said, hey, this, to me, this sounds like, as you said, this sounds like Moonlight, this sounds like this kind of landscape, whatever.

And maybe some people look at it and say, wait a minute, that sounds like...

I think it's sunny not moon, but yeah but-- - And that's the magic of music is that abstract music, of course, if it has text, that's something completely different, but abstract music only means what it means to the individual who's on the receiving end.

And that's what makes it so magical.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- And that's why I think it's important that we connect that with this because obviously, people are gonna be experiencing different emotions and feelings when they see this take place.

- [Emily] Exactly.

- And somewhere along, I'm sure someone has composed music that talks about the... Well, we know that there's tons of songs about the sun-- - [Emily] Sure.

- -but very literal songs where this will be sort of a, as we said, for most of us, a once in a lifetime experience like this.

So it'll evoke a lot of emotions and will probably inspire somebody to write something about the experience-- - [Emily] No doubt, no doubt at all.

Absolutely.

- [Steve] Yeah.

Now, Kelly, one of the things you've been doing, and obviously we focus on a lot of educational things here at WBGU-PBS, your goal throughout this is to educate people, children, about this event and to get them involved and understand the science and just see how just exciting it can be, something they're gonna look up at the sky and see, and then connect that to all these other educational pieces.

- I think what's really neat too about WBGU being part of Bowling Green State University and being part also your public television station, is that we can take the knowledge that you have, I'm learning something right now, and share that with all of our viewers.

So that's what we aim to do.

And with Dr. Layden and Dr. Dellenbusch, I was just chatting with them and between segments, and it's been so fascinating for me to learn and be able to take their knowledge.

They have been so instrumental in helping us.

We developed a 40 page activity guide and workbook around the eclipse.

And it's really for anyone.

There are children's activities throughout the book, but if you want to learn about where the path of totality is, if you want to learn about what you should be looking for during the phases, if you want to know a little bit of history about how animals behave during the eclipse, you can find it in our workbook.

And thanks to Dr. Layden and Dr. Dellenbusch for reviewing our content and assisting us, because we're novices to it too, but just the ability to share that information is exciting.

And then we have developed with our producer, Kaitlyn Kuch Finkler, she's developed seven eclipse videos with Dr. Layden and Dr. Dellenbusch, and those have been... We were asked to produce those by the Ohio Department of Education.

So those are all available, all seven videos, as well as the free downloadable activity guide at our website.

So if you go to wbgu.org/solareclipse or just go to wbgu.org and look under the education section, you'll be able to find all those resources.

And then we have links to some of the great events that are coming up.

Dr. Layden and Dr. Dellenbusch I know, and what you mentioned about your speaker series, we have links to the BGSU Eclipse website as well, and information about upcoming events that we're hosting and that the university is hosting too.

So I think we're just really lucky to be near a campus that has all of the knowledge that you all do that you can impart to our viewers.

And you're kind of helping guide us through the process and we just are so appreciative of that as well.

I plan to go down to the Ohio Educational Technology Conference soon and I'm gonna be sharing all of your resources and knowledge with the whole state of Ohio.

So I'll see school superintendents and administrators and curriculum directors, and I'm just so pleased to be able to share that information.

So want everybody to go check it out and use it, and we'll also be distributing eclipse glasses as well as Bowling Green State University is, we'll have plenty of them.

- [Emily] You'll need them.

- [Steve] You'll need them, yeah.

- I also want to mention real quick that on February 29th, which is Leap Day, so that's pretty easy to remember, we are also gonna be hosting a kids activity event over at the BGSU planetarium with the astronomy and physics professors that you just saw.

And we're going to be handing out those workbooks and we're gonna be bringing our frog mascot to greet, meet and greet everybody.

We're gonna be answering questions that people have about the eclipse and allowing kids to really get some hands on activities and have a good time with that as well.

So a lot of fun to be had.

Again, if you want to know more about that in the speaker series, you could either do a search for BGSU eclipse events or go to WBGU and find out a little bit more about that.

So it's all a lot of really exciting things that are happening, and so pleased to think about music as well.

- And Dr. Brown, one of the things I was gonna ask you too, what is your area of expertise in the School of Music?

- [Emily] I conduct the orchestra.

- [Steve] You conduct the orchestra?

Okay.

- [Emily] I conduct the orchestra.

So it's that particular segment of repertoire.

- [Steve] Yeah.

And as you've gone through with that, and I know that obviously composition is obviously a part of that and dealing with that, do you talk about this when you're with your students, like this event and how it relates to music, is that something you do in classes or anything like that as well, besides when you're actually conducting the orchestra, doing practice, things like that?

- Well, mostly we're learning the notes.

I mean, mostly we're learning really how-- - [Steve] So that hasn't changed for...

Okay, got it.

- [Emily] No, that that part hasn't changed.

- [Steve] Okay.

You still have to learn.

- [Emily] Yes, we have very little time to talk about philosophy and ideas and those kinds of things that fascinate all of us.

- [Steve] There it's about, yeah, getting, yeah.

- [Emily] It's about really working out those details and yet the effect of the music is still there on the students themselves, and that's part of my role as a conductor educator.

We perform the Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven and trying to grasp that relationship between the music and the nature that inspired Beethoven to write this piece.

And also from a philosophical point.

I talk about it, especially with my younger student conductors, we talk about that kind of thing, how it influences performance style and interpretive questions and things like that.

- [Steve] And we've got just a real brief moment.

And I suppose, because obviously conductors bring their emotion, their feeling-- - [Emily] Oh yes.

- -their understanding of how they want the music to sound, because as you said, it is just notes.

But the reality is, there's a huge amount of emotion in that, and that's what gives it, that makes people able to say, I felt this when I heard that.

And someone else will say, well, I felt that when I heard that.

So that's an important part.

So, yeah.

- [Emily] Absolutely.

Absolutely.

- Yeah.

Thank you so much both for being here and again, connecting all those dots from the science part to the education part, to the emotional and and musical part of this is all part of this experience we're all gonna have on April Eighth, so it's gonna be pretty exciting I think, for everybody.

Again, thank you so much for being here.

You can check us out at wbgu.org.

You can watch us every Thursday night at eight o'clock on WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Goodnight and good luck.

(upbeat music)