COSI, Columbus OH

We’re staying at the Alton RV Park, it’s a tiny park with no shade, but it is within a mile of the Columbus City Limits. Today, we went to COSI and we were surprised when our membership to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science gave us free admission here. We spent most of our time in the two special exhibits. The first was on mythical creatures, their legends and some theories on why people believed in these creatures. The Kraken which in legend was bigger than a ship, probably came from the Giant Squid. Sea dragons may have come seeing pods of whales or dolphins sighted in the distance, where there jumping between the waves may have looked like a long dragon body emerging from the waves. When large dinosaur bones were found, the heads were turned into dragons and the big thigh bones led to the belief in giants. Could the Cylops be from a baby elephant skull?

Baby elephant skull

The second special exhibit was on Jim Henson and the creation of the Muppets. He got his TV start with two puppets doing a 5-minute local show every day. He also created quite a few short commercials using cartoon Muppet-like characters. The story continues through the creation of Sesame street and the Muppet show. It was quite entertaining because of the many short videos of many of the characters we are all familiar with Kermit, Grover, Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Bert and Ernie and Miss Piggy.

Jim Henson's first TV show

We only saw one of the main exhibits, the section on dinosaurs. The exhibit had a lot more than just the skeletons of these creatures. They also explained the modeling to determine how fast a Tyrannosaurus could run (10-25 mph) and how the big plant eaters moved their necks (the long neck we saw was designed to munch plants in the water below the animal, not leaves above. Another section explained what they learned from dinosaur tracks on how the feet of these dinosaurs worked. The most fascinating section though explained the development of feathers on dinosaurs. 

Therizinosaur lived 70 Million years ago

Feathers were designed for protection from the weather and for coloring. (The eyes of dinosaurs and birds are more fully developed than the other senses). Then how wings may have been used first for gliding and hopping up obstacles. Then finally how the shoulder muscles changed to allow for true flight. There were many fossils where you could see that these dinosaurs did have feathers. Videos provided great explanations for the theories. There were lots of regular exhibits we didn’t have the energy to see on Life, Oceans, Progress over time, and gadgets. We had already spent three hours here.  

Aepyornis bird extinct in 1500 AD 

Then we headed off for a late lunch at Schmidt’s German Restaurant for some schnitzel.