COSI's Newest Learning Environment
Lily Pad is a new hands-on laboratory located inside COSI’s Ocean exhibition. Learn about the creatures that live in watersheds (land areas that drain water to a single point like a stream or a river) and how human activity impacts watersheds.
Explore six different Lily Pad lab stations, each featuring a different activity to help you understand what's happening in watersheds and why they’re so important to us:
- Create a Critter – Design an animal adapted to live in water. You’ll better understand how real creatures breathe, eat, and survive.
- A Soapy Situation – Ever washed your car and watched the soap drain down your driveway? Learn how detergent changes the cohesive properties of water and can impact aquatic life.
- Filter Challenge – Mimick nature’s own filtering process. Make a bowl of “polluted water” using colored sand and beads, process it through a series of sieves, and use a magnet to remove pollutants.
- Which Mussel is Which? - Identify freshwater mussels that live in Ohio's streams, rivers and lakes. Find out why these mussels are important to our watershed and why they are an endangered species.
- Surface Matters – What happens when it rains on concrete, permeable concrete, asphalt, or topsoil? Where does the water go? Is one kind of surface better for watersheds than another? Find out in this activity.
- Stream Doctors – Identify and match aquatic creatures from nearby rivers. Use the real tool from Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources to determine the health of our waterways by what creatures are living in the water.
You’ll learn that we all live in a watershed, and that the choices we make affect our water and the life it supports. That ultimately affects us!
Explore More...
Eco Kids June 21-25, 2010 (9am-Noon)
Explore the world around you - and learn about the impact your choices have on our planet - in this new camp that makes “going green” more fun than ever! learn more...
Amazing H20 July 12-16, 2010 (1pm-4pm)
Be prepared to get wet as we spend time at COSI exploring the physical properties of water. Then head outside to investigate the ecology of the Scioto River. learn more...
Planet Earth May 31, 2010 (9am-4pm) | Single-Day Camp
Explore the interconnectedness of water, air, and land by looking at the Earth's changes. Discover ways to “go green." learn more...
Table Sponsors:
Anderson Concrete Corp.
The Olen Corporation
Shelly Materials, Inc.