PORTLAND, Maine — One doesn't need to be in the path of totality to have an exciting eclipse experience on Monday, April 8.
For instance, Portland will witness 96.4 percent totality in the sky. There are things to do on the ground leading up to it as well. At the Children’s Museum & Theater of Maine, staff are preparing eclipse-themed arts and crafts projects, running all weekend and Monday morning, and all are included with admission.
Visitors Program Associate Nolan Ellsworth demonstrated a simple eclipse drawing, placing a circular piece of paper on top of a larger paper, and tracing the edge of the circle with a pastel chalk pencil, smudging the fine line to replicate the sun's rays extending beyond the covered moon during a solar eclipse.
"Here, in the makerspace, we just wanted to spark curiosity and creativity around the eclipse," Ellsworth said.
Across the makerspace, Education Program Manager Brittany Liscord took a slightly more scientific approach, as she showed different-sized spheres she planned to use to explain perception and relative size to two and three-year-olds during the free Science for Tots program on Wednesdays. April's theme is "space."
Liscord also showed rocks she had placed in silly putty that was made in-house.
"What we do is, really, harness the fact that children are natural scientists," she smiled. "They are ready to observe and learn from the world the day they are born. So, we are just riding along with them and picking up on their own energies and their own, natural curiosities, and doing it in a way where they can meet friends and make relationships with those around them, which is something that we really value as well."
While both programs are free, staff ask parents register for the Science for Tots events. The museum will be closed during the eclipse.