Device allows visually impaired to experience Heartland eclipse

PERRYVILLE, Mo. (KFVS) - ”We’re all about inclusivity and this was just another opportunity to provide that for our community,” Stacy Seabaugh, director of special services for the Perryville School District, said.

She’s excited about “Hear the Eclipse,” an event designed to allow everyone to enjoy April’s total solar eclipse.

“So that they could have an experience for all of their senses, including sound and feel as well as vision,” Seabaugh said.

To make that happen, they will use a “light sound” device, created at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

“We’re putting it with a sound system so that all people in the area can experience the sound as well as the visual sight,” she said.

“That experience shouldn’t be denied to anyone, everyone should get to experience these moments,” Astronomer Allyson Bieryla said.

Her team developed the Light Sound device back in 2017 after the total eclipse we experienced in August.

She told us how it works.

“The brightest sound is kind of like a flute sound and then it goes to a clarinet then a low clicking when it hits totality,” Bieryla said.

She said grants made it possible to donate these devices for free all over the world.

“From the beginning we just wanted to make the device low cost and accessible to as many people as possible,” Bieryla said.

The center created 750 devices, but Bieryla told us they’re simple enough to build anywhere.

“If people want to get involved and create their own workshops that definitely a need as this project grows,” she said.

And that’s why Seabaugh hopes her school district can make an impact as well.

“The option is there to expand and for us to create these devices on our own campus, for our own students and that’s huge,” she said.

Seabaugh looks forward to our upcoming eclipse with this new way to experience it.

“Perryville is just a warm welcoming community and this just opens up that inclusivity to the next level,” she said.

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