Millions of eyes will be glued to the sky (with protective solar glasses, of course) to witness one of nature's most spectacular events - the Great American Solar Eclipse - but what about those who are visually impaired or blind?

Thanks to a Edinboro University geosciences professor Dr. David Hurd, they too can enjoy the rare phenomenon.

He has been educating students for 30 years, but one day, Dr. Hurd was told he would have a blind student. It was a challenge at first, but he came up with a clever idea.

"From there, I thought we have to do something to help meet the needs of these students, so we started to develop tactiles, or raised diagrams, to help them better understand concepts in astrology," said Dr. Hurd.

Eventually, this new method of teaching caught on and led to a partnership with NASA. Together, they have developed a series of educational books for the visually impaired.

With the upcoming Great American Solar Eclipse, Dr. Hurd wanted to include everyone

"Something that we did, we thought was important is that even the blind and visually impaired can enjoy this eclipse," said Dr. Hurd. "So we developed a book called Getting a Feel for Eclipses."

Here's how it works. Visually impaired readers feel the cover of the book and find a QR barcode. Using a mobile device, scanning the code opens a website with an audio track. Users can listen to the book while also feeling the raised diagrams.

"Some of them say, I've never seen the moon before, and I'm exploring it right here before me!," said Dr. Hurd. "When we get to experience that, it that makes everything we do here worth it."

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