Between 2014 and 2024 the AAS Solar Eclipse Task Force organized 10 workshops in cities across the United States in or near the path of one of the "Great American" solar eclipses of August 2017, October 2023, and April 2024. These brought together people from all relevant stakeholder groups, including professional and amateur astronomers; formal and informal educators; representatives of tourism bureaus, Chambers of Commerce, and the hospitality industry; and officials from departments of transportation, state and national parks and forests, law-enforcement agencies, and emergency-management organizations.
The workshops were vital for building connections, fostering collaborations, and sharing ideas and resources. Each event focused on specific aspects of eclipse planning, often tailored to the needs of the host community, and was organized around six task-force working groups: local planning, national planning, informal education and outreach, formal education, media relations, and eye safety. These working groups each had dozens of members and were led or co-led by one or two dedicated volunteer task-force members with expertise in their respective fields.
Some workshops were held in conjunction with AAS meetings, where we also held press briefings to fortify the sizable cohort of science writers who attend these semiannual conferences with information and resources to use in their coverage of the eclipses. During the COVID-19 pandemic we held our workshops virtually. Subsequent workshops were hybrid, with both in-person and virtual attendees. Each of our virtual and hybrid workshops attracted about 300 attendees from across North America, whereas the earlier in-person-only events averaged closer to 100 attendees, many of them from the host city or region.
The workshops were instrumental in helping communities on and off the path of totality manage an influx of visitors; in developing and disseminating appropriate eye-safety information nationwide; and in coordinating the efforts of numerous scientific, educational, governmental, and other organizations to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort.
Workshop Content
Most of the following pages have links to session videos and speakers' presentation files.
- September 2023 Workshop (September 29-30, 2023, San Antonio, TX & Virtually)
- June 2023 Workshop (June 9-10, 2023, Albuquerque, NM & Virtually)
- October 2022 Workshop (Oct. 21-22, 2022, Rochester, NY & Virtually)
- April 2022 Workshop (April 8-9, 2022, Virtually)
- April 2021 Workshop (April 9-10, 2021, Virtually)
- June 2019 Workshop (June 8-9, 2019, St. Louis, Missouri)
There were also eclipse-related sessions and other activities at the AAS meetings in June 2023 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in June 2024 in Madison, Wisconsin, and in June 2025 in Anchorage, Alaska.
