Working with Public Libraries and Science Teachers to Do Large-Scale Public Outreach for the 2023-2024 Eclipses of the Sun

The Solar Eclipse Activities for Libraries (SEAL) Project, organized through the Space Science Institute in Boulder and funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, distributed six million solar-viewing glasses, solar eclipse information, and other resources, through more than 15,000 public libraries across the country and US territories. Librarians were offered professional development and an online community, so they could provide effective programming and reliable information as they distributed the glasses and information packets and sheets to their patrons. Some 49,000 library programs were organized for the two eclipses, often with the help of local professional or amateur astronomers, trained undergraduates, or local science teachers and their students. Over 200 solar science kits, which could be used long after the eclipses were over, were also distributed to each state library system for lending to local libraries. If each pair of glasses was used by three people, the project reached some 18 million people with safe viewing tools and eclipse information, constituting the largest single outreach project for the two eclipses. Hundreds of science teachers and their students were also trained and mobilized, through the National Science Teaching Association, to act as eclipse resource agents in their communities.