COSI Connects Kits - Parent/Educator Resources

Each COSI Connects Water box is filled with engaging, hands-on STEM activities. COSI’s education experts have created these activities to encourage and reinforce Ohio's Learning Standards. The instructions and materials needed are listed for each activity inside the Water activity book.

Float Your Boat - In this activity, each child will experiment with different objects of various weights, sizes, and shapes to see which objects float in water and which objects sink.

Nature’s Zoom Lens - In this activity, each child will use water to magnify an image and learn about how light rays travel and refract.

Surface Tension - In this two-part activity, each child will see how many drops of water they can fit on a penny before it will spill over. Using what they learned about surface tension, their next challenge will be to see if they can make a paper clip float in water.

Chromatography Flowers - In this activity, each child will use a process called chromatography to learn about different substances present in a mixture. They will do this experiment simply with water and coffee filters to explore different pigments hidden inside markers!

School of Fish - In this activity, each child will learn the difference between a school and a shoal of fish. Then they will make their own model shoal of fish that “swims” with the help of surface tension on the water!

View the corresponding activity videos here.

“Ohio’s Learning Standards emphasize skills like critical thinking and problem solving — qualities most sought by today’s employers. By teaching our students to apply these skills to what they are learning in school, we can make sure they are on track to graduate from high school and enjoy success in college, careers and life.” Ohio Department of Education

Science, Technology, and Mathematics Standards
Float Your Boat
Kindergarten K.PS.1: Objects and materials can be sorted and described by their properties.
First Grade 1.PS.1: Properties of objects and materials can change.
Second Grade 2.PS.1: Forces change the motion of an object.
Third Grade 3.PS.1: All objects and substances in the natural world are composed of matter.

Nature’s Zoom Lens
Fifth Grade 5.PS.2: Light and sound are forms of energy that behave in predictable ways.

Surface Tension
Sixth Grade 6.SP.5: Summarize numerical data sets in relation to their context.
High School Chemistry C.PM.6: Intermolecular forces of attraction.

Chromatography Flowers
High School Chemistry C.PM.6: Intermolecular forces of attraction.

School of Fish
Kindergarten K.LS.2: Living things have physical traits and behaviors, which influence their survival.
First Grade 1.LS.2: Living things survive only in environments that meet their needs.
Second Grade 2.LS.2: All organisms alive today result from their ancestors, some of which may be extinct. Not all kinds of organisms that lived in the past are represented by living organisms today.
High School Chemistry C.PM.6: Intermolecular forces of attraction.

In this box, your child will also find opportunities to write down their scientific findings in their workbook and connect to digital learning resources through COSI Connects. This will allow them to reach English Language Arts, Technology and Digital Literacy Learning standards.
Kindergarten through 2nd Grade
K-2.ICT.3.b.: Use visuals found in digital learning tools and resources to clarify and add to knowledge.
W.K.2: Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/ explanatory texts that name what is being written about and supply some information about the topic.
W.1.8: With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.
W.2.8: Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.
K-2.ST.2.a.: Communicate and collaborate using several digital methods.

3rd through 8th Grade
3-5.ICT.1.a.: With guidance, identify and use digital learning tools or resources to support planning, implementing and reflecting upon a defined task.
W.3-5.10: Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
3-5.ICT.4.d.: Produce and publish information appropriate for a target audience using digital learning tools and resources.
6-8.ICT.4.b.: Select and use a variety of media formats to communicate information to a target audience.

Want to learn more about Water? Columbus Metropolitan Library has recommended the list of books below for further exploration of the Water theme.

Pre-K
Hey, Water! by Antoinette Portis, 2019.
I Am the Rain by John Paterson, 2018.
Water by Carol Lawrence, 2018.

Elementary
Flying Deep: Climb Inside Deep-sea Submersible Alvin by Michelle Cusolito, 2018.
Who Was Jacques Cousteau? by Nico Medina, 2015.
Water is Water: A Book About the Water Cycle by Miranda Paul, 2015.

Middle/High
Blue Planet II: A New World of Hidden Depths by James Honeyborne, 2017.
Our Planet by Alastair Fothergill, 2019.
Rising Water: The Story of the Thai Cave Rescue by Marc Aronson, 2020.

: On-Demand Workshops : Pre-Scheduled Connections	Pre-K	K	Grade 1	Grade 2	Grade 3	Grade 4	Grade 5	Grade 6	Grade 7	Grade 8	Grade 9	Grade 10	Grade 11	Grade 12+
Junior Star Safari
Snake Bites
Animal Adventures
Dino Tales
Superhero Science
Introduction to Coding
Gadget Works
Forensic Psychology
Genetic Counseling
In Depth: Autopsy
In Depth: Kidney Transplant
Surgical Suite: Sports Medicine
Surgical Suite: Total Knee Replacement
You Become the Pharmacist