In the vein of conducting a scientific experiment, COSI President and CEO Frederic Bertley sought to answer a question: How can we get local individuals and families more comfortable with science?

(…) Happily, the four-day communitywide experiment that Bertley and COSI conducted in May exceeded expectations as it attracted more than 40,000 participants to about 100 science-themed events in Columbus and 16 other municipalities.

With that result and support already committed by Battelle (…) COSI announced recently that its science festival will be back — and bigger — on May 6-9 next year.

(…) Payoffs for extending the reach of central Ohio’s science museum into neighborhood schools, bars, businesses, libraries and other locations are limitless.

Whether it is making the study of science less scary and more appealing to youth or enabling parents to be more encouraging of their children’s interests in science, there are no losers in COSI’s admirable stewardship of the discipline for young people, old folks and everyone in between.

The more we all understand about how things work, the better we will each be in taking care of our surroundings and in pursuing facts and scientific inquiry to help understand what still puzzles us.

In a world where too many act or speak out too quickly on too little information, a little more science and objective testing of our own hypotheses might be just what we need to break through barriers that keep us apart.

— The Columbus Dispatch