Explore the social, cultural, and historical significance of eclipses through the diverse cultures of North America.

Dr. Challú and Dr. Dong are both professors in the History Department at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. In April 2024, a total solar eclipse was visible from Bowling Green, Ohio - the first time since 1806.

This inspired us to design a new Public History class where the students would help create a podcast exploring the social and cultural significance of eclipses - and astronomy in general - across history.

Our listeners are people interested in eclipse-chasing and amateur astronomy, people interested in Midwestern history, and those interested in learning about different cultural perspectives about astronomy and stargazing.
 

A podcast offered the chance to highlight different voices - literally - in the project. As a Public History program, we were excited by the chance to bring many different perspectives of stargazing and astronomical knowledge to people through an easily accessible format like podcasting.

We started the initial research and project proposals in the fall of 2022. Students conducted interviews, wrote scripts, and recorded the podcast episodes in the fall of 2023. We launched the first episode in March 2024, just a couple of weeks before the total solar eclipse.
 

The Public History Program at Bowling Green State University has a number of project-based courses, but this was the first time that a podcast was the final project.

Production took longer than originally expected - it's definitely something we will budget more time for in future iterations of the class!

While this project was student-led and took place in the context of the course, it also required a lot of additional work from the History Department faculty and staff. We received a grant from a regional nonprofit (Ohio Humanities) to offset some of the costs and a local digital storytelling agency (Midstory Toledo) provided editing and production support.
 

As of now, Eclipsing History does not have any sponsors.

Creating a podcast provided our History students with career-ready skills like project management and producing a final product for the public.

A podcast is also a great way to bridge the gap between students, scholars, and the general public by podcasting about a topic of general interest. In this case, it was the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse but in the future we can see other popular topics.
 

We were fortunate to have access to our University's School of Media and Communications Recording Studio for our core interviews. For other interviews and recording, simple tools like VoiceNote and a Podtrak worked well.

We created storyboards for each episode, and then scripted them based on the interviews.

Some of our interviews were in person, with local experts like a BGSU Art History Professor and a Cultural Education Specialist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Other specialists were interviewed via Zoom (and phone when Zoom broke down!)
 

We promote our podcast on Facebook, X, Instagram, and direct emailing. Our podcast is hosted on an independent website along with its presences on major podcasting sites.

We've found tagging our partner organization on social media to be helpful. Our podcast received a big boost from our state-wide NPR station, Ohio Newsroom, which played an interview with Dr. Challú on aggregated news programs in the weeks leading up to the Eclipse, leading to a spike in traffic to our podcast site.
 

We learned to budget a lot more time for the whole process! We expected that the podcast would evolve somewhat as the project went on, and that certainly happened as we tailored the project to more closely match the content provided by our interviewees.
 

You can learn more about the Eclipsing History podcast on our website here: https://casit.bgsu.edu/eclipsinghistory/
Follow our socials here:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BGSUHistoryDept
X: @BGSU_History
Instagram: @historydepartmentbgsu