Scioto River Journey

What am I doing?

My intention is to travel the river in sections, documenting and interpreting what I see and experience through a blog hosted by COSI’s website, between April and August 2012.

The sections of the river are:

1. Source to Kenton - April 13
2. Kenton to Prospect
3. Prospect to Delaware
4. Delaware to Columbus
5. Columbus to Circleville
6. Circleville to Waverly
7. Waverly to mouth

In each section I will assess water quality using macroinvertebrate sampling, document plant and animal life in the stream corridor and make side trips to explore tributaries and nearby points of historic and cultural interest.

Why the Scioto and why now?

Fourteen years ago, I started working at COSI. That was just over a year before COSI moved to its current home on the west side of the Scioto River. Since that time the Scioto has become a part of my daily consciousness. Muddy and slow, it flows past the building where I spend most of my working hours. It changes with the seasons, occasionally freezing in the winter and running high and fast in the spring. I cross it on the Broad Street Bridge when I take the bus to work and I ride along it when I bicycle to work via the Olentangy Bike Trail. I get a downtown Columbus snapshot of the Scioto every day Monday through Friday.

My knowledge of the Scioto grew with that daily observation. I have seen Great Blue Heron and Double Crested Cormorants fishing just outside COSI’s doors. My curiosity grew, too, when we started to build the Lily Pad exhibit at COSI. The idea for this project was born out of the research I did for that project. I wondered...

• Where does this river begin?
• Where does it go?
• What is the river like as it grows from a small stream to a source of drinking water for much of Columbus and a major tributary of the Ohio River?

It turns out that the Scioto is a very interesting river. I learned more when COSI decided to host the traveling exhibit, Water, during Spring and Summer 2012. As part of that exhibit, I will be following my curiosity about the Scioto in a series of trips to different sections of the river from April through August 2012. Come with me! Follow my blog and learn about this great river as it travels through central and southern Ohio.