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COSI Toledo, Toledo, Ohio

Left to right: Mary Chute, Acting Director, Institute of Museum and Library Services; Chairman of the Board F. Michael Walsh, M.D., COSI Toledo; Elementary schoolteacher of 35 years Pauline LoCascio; First Lady Laura Bush. Photo by Steven E. Purcell. Click image for a larger version.

In the seven years since Ohio’s COSI Toledo opened, the hands-on science museum has become a close partner with local school systems and other community organizations in bringing the joy of scientific discovery to children of all ages. The museum works directly with three area school systems and other partners and offers on a variety of innovative programs for schoolchildren and teachers.

Pauline LoCascio, a highly celebrated 35-year Toledo Public schoolteacher who has partnered with COSI Toledo on many educational programs, will accept the award alongside Lori Hauser, Director of Development or Operations, and F. Michael Walsh, M.D., Chairman of the Board of COSI Toledo.

Biographies of Participants

Pauline LoCascio, Elementary Schoolteacher of 35 Years
When Pauline LoCascio brings garden worms into her second grade classroom for the first time, the children scream “YUK!” She tells them to say “WOW” instead. The vibrant and highly celebrated 35-year veteran of the classroom at Birmingham Elementary in Toledo believes you have to captivate young children’s imaginations to get them into the world of science. Ms. LoCascio turns every opportunity into a learning adventure. When it is raining or snowing, she grabs an umbrella for a lesson on weather. And when COSI Toledo invited her students to help raise a large banner displaying the museum’s new logo, Ms. LoCascio turned it into an engaging engineering exercise about ropes and pulleys.

Ms. LoCascio has partnered with the museum since its inception, teaching at the museum, organizing COSI festivals at her school (which is only a mile away), and assisting with science and math nights for school families at the museum. Ms. LoCascio and COSI Toledo both know that the secret to cultivating successful science students is to engage the children, give them a vocabulary, and then give them an opportunity to lead.

Lori Hauser, Director of Operations
Lori Hauser is currently the Director of Operations for COSI Toledo. Ms. Hauser has been in the science center industry since 1995, when she helped open the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, OH. She also helped create the national summer day camp program called Camp Invention with The National Inventors Hall of Fame; there are now over 40,000 children in this summer day camp program. Ms. Hauser has been with COSI Toledo for the past five years.

F. Michael Walsh, M.D., Chairman of the Board
F. Michael (Mike) Walsh, M.D., M.B.A. is President and owner of Consultants in Laboratory Medicine of Greater Toledo, a 120-employee company that provides pathology and laboratory services and support for The ProMedica Health System. Mike is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, the Medical College of Wisconsin, and Fairleigh Dickinson University. He received his training in Pathology at the National Naval Medical Center and National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He is a Clinical Associate Professor of Pathology at the Medical University of Ohio at Toledo and the University of Michigan. He is married to Lillian Joan Walsh and has five children ranging in age from 34 to 19. In addition to COSI, he has been Chairman of the Board and Annual Campaign Chair of the United Way, St. John’s Jesuit High School, and St. Francis de Sales High School. He is a member of the Executive Finance Committee of the Ohio Republic.