Sixth grade students participate in COSI on Wheels demonstrations and activities Jan. 23 at Batavia Middle School. From left are Stephanie Scott and Monica Long, both volunteers, Emma Watson, Morgan Walsh, Kiley Traynor, and Ismail Ismail.

Sixth grade students participate in COSI on Wheels demonstrations and activities Jan. 23 at Batavia Middle School. From left are Stephanie Scott and Monica Long, both volunteers, Emma Watson, Morgan Walsh, Kiley Traynor, and Ismail Ismail.
By Kristin Bednarski
Sun staff

Fifth and sixth graders at Batavia Middle School were able to get a hands on science learning experience thanks to COSI on Wheels Jan. 23.

COSI on Wheels is a traveling outreach program of the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus that provides an assembly along with hands-on science activities for students in different school districts.

“We come to schools in case schools can’t visit COSI in Columbus,” Caitlin Yahr, with the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, said. “Kids get that hands-on science learning they couldn’t get in a classroom.”

Volunteers with the school district work with COSI employees to make the program run smoothly.

Yahr said the focus of their session at the middle school this year was energy.

“We’re learning all about energy,” Yahr said. “We had a presentation about renewable and non-renewable energy, and we do hands-on science activities to get to learn a little more in depth.”

Yahr said they gave a presentation to all fifth and sixth grade students in the morning, and in the afternoon students split up into different groups to do the more hands-on activities.

Yahr made the students promise to learn at least one thing from the activities and to have fun while participating.

The different stations scattered throughout the gym included a station where students got to test which objects and materials were insulators and which were conductors, a station where students got to see the difference between a standard and florescent light bulb, and more.

Kiley Traynor, a sixth grader, said she learned that a blow drier uses more electricity than a radio during the hands-on learning activities.

She said she liked COSI on Wheels because they get to do things they don’t get to do every day in class.

Gina Lucy, a sixth grader, said she had fun and also learned a lot during during the presentation and hands-on activities.

“I liked it,” Lucy said. “I learned that you don’t want to pollute.”

Batavia Local School District hosts COSI on Wheels periodically.

COSI on Wheels science activities align with the Ohio Academic Content Standards and the National Science Education Standards.

For more information about the program visit www.cosi.org/educators/outreach/cow/about.