The eclipse was fleeting, but those special glasses many purchased still can be put to good use.
Atlanta Public Schools wants to make sure students don’t trash the 50,500 cardboard glasses the district acquired to watch the solar spectacular.
APS is collecting unwanted glasses to donate to schools in South America and Asia for viewing the 2019 eclipse in those continents, said spokeswoman Latisha Gray.
“We are working on gathering any solar glasses that the staff or students did not want to keep,” she said, in an email.
APS will partner with Astronomers Without Borders to distribute the reused glasses.
The district is asking its schools to collect any unwanted glasses and also has set up a collection box at its central office, 130 Trinity Ave. SW.
It purchased 50,000 glasses so that Atlanta students could enjoy watching Monday’s eclipse safely. The district received 500 more glasses by donation.
Community members who want to recycle solar specs also can drop off their glasses at the district office.
Superintendent Meria Carstarphen is even urging her Twitter followers to help with the cause.
Elsewhere, Georgia Tech students collected glasses from eclipse viewers who gathered on the campus green Monday. They planned to make sure the glasses are reused.
Some Cobb County School District students took their glasses home, while other teachers held onto them for future science lessons, according to spokeswoman Donna Lowry.
DeKalb County School District provided 14,000 pairs of glasses, and the students will keeping them.
Gwinnett County Public Schools’ science department purchased 105,000 pairs of glasses, plus some schools added even more pairs to that supply, according to spokeswoman Sloan Roach.
What happens next to Gwinnett’s thousands of spectacles will depend on the specific schools, she said. Some disposed of the glasses. Other schools let students take them as an eclipse keepsake, and some schools will donate the glasses to Astronomers Without Borders.
