Pushing the solar eclipse glasses against his temple, senior Jonathan Gil peer up at the sky, squinting to see the eclipse Earth and Space Science teacher Trey Pearce had been talking about for weeks.

Suddenly, Gil spotted the sun, mesmerized as he witnessed the moon slowly engulf the sun darkening everything around him.

“It looked so cool being able to witness it in person,” Gil said. “I have always heard about it from my teacher and in movies, but witnessing it in real life is definitely an experience that I won’t ever forget.”

It was the first time since 1878 that Dallas was in the path of totality, and it won’t occur again for nearly 300 years.

“This is quite literally a once in a lifetime thing,” Pearce said. “This is something really really rare right within our solar system that other planets don’t get, so even from a solar system wide perspective, this is a really cool experience.”

Pearce took his students outside a couple hours early so they could witness the entire process of the eclipse.

“I wanted my students to understand how rare this is but also how powerful this experience is,” he said.

In the days leading up to the eclipse, Pearce was teaching students about how everything in the known universe, including humans, is made of stardust – elements left over after the death of stars.

“There should be a connective tissue to this,” he said. “Getting the opportunity to see something celestial like this, I want them to feel that connection again to the earth, to the universe.”

Principal Chris Choat planned a fire drill for the day of the eclipse allowing the entire school to witness totality.

“I was really glad they let everyone out safely and allow us to have this once in a lifetime experience,” Celia Schaefers said.

As the environment darkened, everyone witnessed the drastic change in the atmosphere and many subtle changes due to the sudden darkness.

“It was kind of eerie and kind of cool, in an unusual way, so you could definitely tell that something abnormal was happening.” Shaefers said. “There was many things I wasn’t expecting, like it got quite dark, I thought it would be a bit shaded, but it got so dark the streetlights came on.”

“There was a lot of excitement with the event,“ Laura Santiago said. “We have been hearing about this event for a while, from social media and from our teachers, so being able to finally witness it was definitely amazing.”