New Concord residents and their children visited the New Concord Branch of the Muskingum County Library and got hands-on with the science behind roller coasters on Tues. Oct. 8 at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.
The Center for Science and Industry, COSI, based out of Columbus, has a program on wheels where their Outreach Educators travel around the area and put on assembly presentations for younger children.
The COSI Outreach Program visited New Concord on Oct. 8.
The presentation at the library was guided by Outreach Educator, Hannah Brooke, and the topic for the night was “Crazy Coasters”.
COSI Outreach Educator, Hannah Brooke, visits the New Concord Branch Library.
They travel as far as West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan to do these kid friendly activities and a variety of presentations.
“It could range from 10 minutes to five hours, so there is a range, but it’s always a lot of fun,” said Brooke.
The New Concord Branch Library hosted two sessions of COSI on wheels in their meeting room.
The first part of the session was a question and answer where Brooke got the children to focus on the forces behind roller coasters.
“Getting them excited, getting them to understand the science behind things that they might love [is great],” said Brooke.
The next part of the 45-minute program was an interactive activity.
They were split into groups of three to four and asked to build coasters that had a hill, a loop, and it had to be functional. The goal was to get a marble down the hill and through the loop in one try.
Each team got to choose a name, they could be anything of their choosing, such as one group used the name “Rock n’ Roll.”
The supplies provided were foam pipes and tape and the kids were allowed to use the table and chairs in the room to assist with their construction.
A local New Concord student assembles a mock roller coaster during the COSI Outreach Program Oct. 8.
Brooke called the whole group back to order and had other teams try out everyone else’s coasters, then came the clean up.
Outreach Educators do larger presentations to schools, sometimes up to 500 kids total. Currently, Brooke is visiting the larger schools with chemistry topics. They also do several smaller presentations at local libraries such as the one done in New Concord.
“My favorite part would be being able to interact with the kids, getting kids excited about science is the highlight of job,” said Brooke. “It’s one of the things that I absolutely love.”
COSI on Wheels has presented other science based presentations in New Concord before, also at the Library.
