Solar Eclipse: Shining a Light on the Topic Everyone is Talking About
April 1, 2024 | Episode 13
Producer’s Note: The following is an AI-generated transcript of The Wellness Conversation, an OhioHealth Podcast
SPEAKERS: Marcus Thorpe, Andy Aichele, Lindsey Gordon, Michelle Wright
00:14
Welcome back to the wellness conversation and OhioHealth Podcast. I'm Marcus Thorpe.
00:18
And I'm Lindsay Gordon. I'm from the media relations and public relations team at OhioHealth. It's a bit of a different podcast this week as we have a once in a lifetime event happening across North America. And here in Ohio, we have a front row seat. It's the total solar eclipse.
00:36
It's an exciting time for sure. It's happening Monday, April 8, in case you haven't heard about it, but by now everybody pretty much has, with good portions of the Buckeye State considered to be in the path of totality, meaning, there could be a good deal of people coming into our area to take it all in.
00:51
Joining us to get us prepared for this celestial event is OhioHealth's Michelle, Wright. OhioHealth, System Manager of environment of care and safety, and COSI's, Andy Aichele vice president of education. Thank you both so much for being with us today and getting us ready for this big day.
01:09
Thanks for having us.
01:10
Thank you.
01:10
Hey, Andy, I know this is a really big deal for COSI. It's not like he just started planning for the last couple of months, this has been something in the works for quite a while. Can you tell us first what this eclipse is? And why it's such a big deal. This is something most people I mean, you may never see it again, for a lot of us. I mean, we know that.
01:30
Yeah that's correct. The last time that Ohio had a solar eclipse in totality, was 1806. So the opportunity to see this in its totality, and a good portion of the state will experience this on the afternoon of April eighth is a really big celestial event. Eclipses happen all the time, around the Earth, it is weather dependent, how much you can see, and we'll talk a little bit about that, and what we will anticipate that day. But this opportunity to see the sun blocked out by the moon, and in totality, meaning that the moon will be completely in the path from our eyes from the Earth to the Sun is a major event.
02:14
I do want to talk about COSI just for a little while here. Before we get into the OhioHealth side of things. How jazzed Are you and the team? I mean, this is look, this is science. This is like the Superbowl it feels like for science. Has there just been this buzz around this for you and your team?
02:29
Absolutely. We've approached this from an a blitz point of view. Where can we be how can we be educating folks about the safety of this, the science of this, and the once in a lifetime opportunity to see something like this along the path of totality, not just here in Ohio, but in the surrounding area and across the country. And so we've been so excited to be able to put together tools that help people no matter where they are experienced this great science event.
02:58
So speaking again, of the glasses, this is really cool, COSI and OhioHealth are teaming up to make sure that everyone working at OhioHealth hospitals on that day and all the patients are safe and can enjoy this experience. Michelle, tell us about that. Yeah, we've been really excited to partner with COSI and to get the glasses provided for us. So we are you know, we want to encourage our associates as well to make sure they see this as again a lifetime event. So we want to make sure that our associates are safe, we want to make sure our patients are safe. So with that, we'll also be broadcasting the eclipse on the patient TVs, so that those those folks that can't you know, get up and get to the to the window or the viewing area that makes sure that that they can see it as well,
03:46
These are two leaders within their space, obviously OhioHealth within the health space and COSI within the science and education space. Talk about why it just felt like a good fit for the team to have OhioHealth on board and to really make sure that this is a celebrated event for for both sides of this. So
04:04
So COSI does its work through partnership with the community. We know that each community looks to their community leaders, their health providers, their education providers, their civic leaders, for support and for engagement during events like this. So it was a really a natural fit for us to partner with such an amazing health organization with such a wide footprint that, again covers so much of the totality of this event in and of itself and to again II Quate to the services and the community leaders that we work with, with great opportunities for engagement.
04:42
You're both professionals in your field. I'm just curious from a personal perspective, what is this been like for both of you? You've done a lot you've seen a lot but this has to be so different from Michelle, I know especially for you This is not what you signed up for when you when you got here at OhioHealth. But what does this whole entire experience been like for you, as you've watched it take place.
05:09
It's been fun, actually, it's been exciting, a little stressful at times, you know, part of our work that we do is emergency preparedness. And again, we're not looking at this as an emergency. But at the same time, we just, you know, want to make sure that our hospitals are prepared. So it kind of started out with a couple of the hospitals in the totality path of particular northern hospitals. And so we just kind of started reaching out to our community members and and making sure that, you know, the hospital would be available, we could support our community. And it started kind of steamrolling from there. As you know, like for our northern hospitals, especially at Hardin, we partnered with ONU. So they're going to help us provide care in that area during the eclipse time. So we just kind of really want to be that that beacon cornerstone in our in our community to make sure that that we're there and prepared. I think your colleague, Matt Akers said before a beacon of light in the darkness. He said a beacon of light. As a crazy lighhouse person, I love that. I'm going with it.
06:16
Andy, your look, you're the Director of Education for COSI, which is not only locally known and celebrated nationally and globally. So this is, this is your backyard. I mean, you know about science and education. But personally for you has it been what you thought it would be hasn't been as exciting as I can imagine, it must be?
06:34
It is extremely exciting anytime nature can put on a show. And it's a positive news story is is a great benefit. But also the fact that people are talking about the science, when science, technology, engineering, arts and math or steam is a part of our everyday vocabulary and our everyday life. Then we make different choices. We can talk about things with our kids, with our friends with our parents, that is a phenomenon that everyone's experiencing. And it levels the playing field on the conversation.
07:08
Let's talk more about soaking in the event and capturing this event. Everything's on social media these days, we want to take pictures of everything. How can we do that with the Eclipse and the glasses? I've tried the glasses on and I can't see a thing when I have those glasses on. So how do I make sure that day of I'm ready to go to record this with my phone?
07:30
That's a great question. There are phone and smartphone filters that you can purchase. And so that would be a filter very similar to the eclipse glasses that goes over the phone. We've tried these with just a regular Eclipse glass, and it does work but any type of solar filter that you can get for your phone, they are available online, that you can do that recording with.
07:54
How about babies, pets, you know, there's going to be so many people that are out and about, I mean, are there things you can do to make sure that they're safe and that their eyes are being taken care of and the things that we're thinking about for ourselves too.
08:07
So that's one of the reasons why I bring up pinhole cameras and looking at the leaves in the shadows on the ground. You know, we do want to make sure that safety is always at the forefront. And that if you don't have the tools or that you don't have enough of the tools to realize all the ways that you can still experience the Eclipse without looking directly up. There's also a thing that we do need to talk about, and that's the weather. We're all assuming that in Ohio, April day is going to be completely cloudless. But I don't want folks to think that if it is a cloudy day that they won't still be able to experience this, it will still get dark, it will still get as dark as night during the time of totality, even if it's cloudy. And it's going to be really interesting, again, to engage with nature during that time. What are the insects doing? What sounds are they making? What are the dogs and the raccoons and other animals that might not be out during that time? What are they doing? It's very confusing for nature when something like this happens. And so there are so many opportunities again, across that period of time of about three hours to be observing everything and science starts with observation. I might take some observations and I asked myself questions about them. And I investigate. Again, our great partnership between OhioHealth and COSI is going to provide some of those great tools to do those experiments with and to do those investigations.
09:38
When you say glasses, and I know that you know that the four minutes that we're talking about is the totality right? That's the darkest part of it. But for the three hours as people are kind of looking up Do you still recommend they wear the glasses for the duration of that three hour period?
09:55
Great question. The glasses do not need to be permanently affixed to your face. Certainly, if you're going to stare directly at what's going on, you'll want to have them on. But the beauty of this, and we do need to be very careful in our messaging, at those three minutes of totality, the glasses can come off a little bit, you can look at what's going on, because so much of the sun's light is being reflected around the moon and blocked, you can see that halo around during that totality. But we are recommending people keep their glasses very close hand, because as the moon starts to move, it's going to get exponentially brighter to your eyes. And just as we would never ask someone to look directly at the sun on a regular day, we want to make sure we're taking a lot of precautions on this special day.
10:48
I have a four year old and so he totally understands things now, and I'm so excited for this one of his favorite songs is about the solar system and the planets. And yeah, I mean, he's already been experimenting with the glasses, do you think that's a good idea to maybe just like, introduce the glasses early to your family? And let them know, you know, maybe order them soon. So you're prepared?
11:09
Yeah that's a really great idea. Because the more we get comfortable with any tool that we use in science, or even any tool that we use to help keeps us safe. We don't get in the moment and wonder, Am I using this right? Do I have it? Does it fit? Is it appropriate? Practicing in any of these topics is a good idea?
11:30
Alright, let's talk about the day after. So you've done all this work. There's this build up? You're ready to go. Now it's April 9, have you thought about that day for both of you? Because you've been so involved in this? What is that going to be like?
11:45
A relief for us? And especially for my side with OhioHealth? We actually are going to be believe it or not doing a lot of documentation. What did we learn from the event? How can we use some of those lessons learned to move forward in some of our other preparation methods? So that part will be great. Personally, personally, I have a plane ticket in four days.
12:16
You've earned it. I've been in a lot of meetings. Lindsey has really been in a lot of them. So how about you, Andy day after?
12:23
I think we're going to be on a high from the excitement, we are going to be at seven signature events throughout Ohio and Indiana, where we could be seeing at each one of those events between 30 and 100,000 people gathered to watch this phenomenon and experience it together. So we're going to be shifting into storytelling mode, on the ninth about everything that we saw these great connections that we made the monitoring the traffic to our COSI.org/eclipse site. On the side of all of our eclipse glasses is a QR code that goes to a website with a lot of resources that will extend after the solar event, we have the opportunity to experience the sun all the time. And so we can do other activities around the topic of solar, even starting on the ninth. But telling that story and talking about the impact, talking about the great partnerships and relationships that we've had, makes it so that the next time that we do something like this, it's going to be even more natural. Another thing to think about too is that these glasses can be used again for another solar eclipse. Now, we may not all be around and be able to keep them for 90 years after this event. But there are companies that you can find online where you can send your glasses to and we'll recycle them for another viewing event somewhere around the world. Because again, these Eclipse happen events happen all the time, we have the great opportunity to provide resources. But these eclipses happen in areas where resources are more scarce. And so people do will have an opportunity to take those classes and pay them forward to another site. That's awesome. Very cool. You mentioned web traffic and digital traffic. But I also thought of traffic after the event. And, Michelle, this is something that you've been talking about with your meetings and preparations and planning. And the takeaway here is just to have your exit plan in place before the event, right?
14:25
Yeah, absolutely. Which is, as you know, it's going to build up after that event. We've seen from previous events, particularly in 2017 in Oregon, when the event is over. A lot of people just pack up and leave right then. So I know that Ohio's message through the Ohio State EMA has kind of been come early, stay late to try to you know, avoid those traffic issues. But yeah, just make sure you know, you know your routes, we're telling our associates that make sure you know, you know, a different route to come to work on that particular day if it's during that buildup of traffic time. So, yeah, just some of those things that we want to make sure that that we can prepare our associates as as much as possible so.
15:08
and I'd like to add in all the comfort aspects to you know, make sure you're hitting that restroom, before you're getting in your car, make sure your car is fueled up, make sure you have some snacks, the the idea of this being done at five o'clock, and that everybody will grab dinner on the way home might be a flawed plan. So being prepared and ensuring that you are fueled, and that you are patient with what's going on. In some locations, they are predicting to double their regular population during this event along the line of totality. So being prepared, being aware of being patient, I know it's hard for some of us is going to be really important to a successful viewing event.
15:50
Yeah, I think about my kids when we're just trying to get out of a crew or Blue Jackets game. And they're like, I'm ready to go now this is that plus a bunch. So just everybody needs to be prepared for those kinds of things. But I like that idea show up early stay late. That's a great idea. Andy, I know we covered a lot. But there's so much is there anything that that you really want our listeners to know that maybe we didn't talk about in this 20 minutes up to this point.
16:17
So I wanted to point out some of our signature events and, and make an invitation, we'll be doing a signature event at COSI, where we will also be supporting events at the main branch of Columbus Metropolitan Library. We will be in Indianapolis at the speedway. That's an event where we could see 100,000 people at that event. I personally will be in Cleveland at an eclipse festival that is all weekend long, between Great Lakes Science Center, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and Cleveland Brown stadium. It's going to be a massive event over there where we could see 30,000 people per day coming to that event we are in state parks we'll be at Delaware State Park will be everywhere where it's a really a great opportunity to to be outside. And to be able to connect with people along these lines of science. And so I would encourage folks that with so many kids having the day off of school and so many workplaces either providing flexibility, or giving a day off opportunity. Go somewhere, go see some things if you're in the path of totality, have an awesome time in your backyard, invite some friends over, have some food, enjoy this moment and enjoy the social aspect of the moment. This is something that again, even if it's cloudy is just not something that you're gonna get to see likely in your lifetime again,
17:40
Well, Lindsay's got young kids, I've got kids a little bit older than her but I know I can speak for her. We are just so lucky to have COSI here. Dr. Birtley and the team adjust what a jewel for all of us to have you and your education team and especially for something like this. So we're appreciative of the partnership that we've developed with OhioHealth and COSI for this and we're looking forward to a lot more of that in the future. So, thank you.
18:07
Our pleasure. We're super excited.
18:09
Well, we do want to get to know you too. A little bit more beyond just the the Eclipse. Are you guys. Okay for some rapid fire fun questions, too. Absolutely. Bring it on. it on, all right, Lindsay.
18:22
So for both of you, we know the eclipse can be a really cool thing to see. Michelle, let's start with you. This is for both of you. But Michelle, we'll start there. What's been the coolest or most impactful thing you've seen in person, before this? Um, I think some of the coolest things I've seen is I would have to say, the Mayan ruins and Mexico were really amazing. And then probably the most awe inspiring thing is the Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska. When that thing calves in big chunks of ice fall into it's amazing it it makes this huge booming noise and it is just wow.
19:03
Andy, I'm sure you've been around the globe, seeing a lot of cool things.
19:07
Absolutely. Although, Ohio has so many amazing treasures to explore. I would say probably the most impactful and fun event that I was at is that COSI, got the opportunity to be at the World's Fair, the World Expo, which occurred in 2022. It was late because of the pandemic. And that was in Dubai, and for COSI to be on an international stage at the World's Fair to help close that event. Just imagine Epcot times 100. It was just such an amazing event. And then in terms of natural wonders, I have to go to Arizona and just seeing the rocks, the cliffs, the canyons, this is science over time. And being a science guy was just so exciting to see the patterns, the layers, the strata and the rocks and then just even thinking about what was life like when that thing might have happened.
20:02
Super cool. If you weren't in Ohio to watch the Eclipse, where would you want to be to watch it? Where do you think would be the neatest or the most fun place to be?
20:11
Well, first of all, I have to say Ohio is going to be the best place to see it. Absolutely, because this path of totality will go from Mexico to Canada, I would probably go Canada. My kids were hockey players. I gotta go to the mother country and go up, far northeast Canada out in the wilderness. I think that would be amazing.
20:36
I'm thinking Texas. And I'm saying Texas just because like Andy says, If you can't be in Ohio, Texas, currently, right now has the brightest sky the clearest and your biggest probability of really seeing that Eclipse as clear as you can. That's a good point. That's a really good point. Andy, your world is in education. Michelle, yours is in the safety space. What's the one thing that you've run into that has nothing to do with your profession that may be the furthest away from that?
21:15
Like things you like, but have nothing to do with what you all do for a living?
21:22
I'll start with that I would have to go back to the youth sports aspect. Being a sports dad has been one of my favorite things that I've ever done. And having the opportunity to travel with my kids, following their passions. has been amazing.
21:37
Yeah, Michelle?
21:39
Probably, so being in safety. You know, I live and breathe that every day. So kind of on my off time, I'm a little bit on the not safety side. So my husband and I, we ride motorcycles. We're in a very large Jeep club in Ohio. So they do a lot of off roading and trails and those kinds of things.
22:03
I had no idea.
22:04
That's probably kind of my escape from the safety world, I guess.
22:09
Michelle, I see you daily at this point. We talk daily, and I had no idea, that is so surprising to me.
22:16
Do what I say not what I do is that?
22:20
Well you know, do it safely. Right? Make sure you get your gear, make sure you're following your your safety protocols. But yeah, a little bit of fun. That's great.
22:31
Well, to both of you, thank you so much for your time for all the work that you've done up to this point. And we're almost here. I can't believe it. I'm sure you can't either. But really enjoy the day and celebrate your teams and all the work that you've done. It's really neat.
22:45
Thank you. And thank you for your support.
22:48
Thanks for having us.
22:50
All right, well, and we want to thank you as well for joining us for this episode of the wellness conversation and OhioHealth podcast. Before we wrap up, we do invite you to check out the OhioHealth hub. It's a one stop shop, connecting you with all the OhioHealth social channels, the newsroom, the wellness blog, the newsletter, and of course, our podcast page. You can find it at ohiohealth.com/the hub.
23:11
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