OMSI Science Festival coming to Othello

OTHELLO — The Othello Public Library will get a visit from the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry on Aug. 19. 

“Every summer, we have looked for performers or different types of things to bring in to the area to encourage kids to participate in the Summer Reading Challenge, and also give them something fun to do something that's free to the community,” said Carlos Orozco, associate director of communications for Mid-Columbia Libraries, of which the Othello library is a branch. “Our programming team reached out to OMSI to see if they could get them to come down, and they agreed.” 

The OMSI Science Festival is a traveling exhibit that the museum brings to schools and other places where kids go to learn, according to its website. Museum staff bring 10-12 tables of various exhibits and activities. 

“What that entails is, they bring in brain teasers or puzzles that are STEM-related,” Orozco said. “They’re also bringing in a touch table with animal pelts and skulls for kids to observe.” 

OMSI was established in Portland in 1944 and occupies a 210,000-square-foot building along the Willamette River, according to the Oregon Encyclopedia. It boasts a planetarium, an IMAX theater and an actual submarine that guests can tour. Besides the Science Festival, the museum also offers children’s camps on the Oregon Coast and in the fossil fields of eastern Oregon. 

Othello will be the third of four stops for the Science Festival in the region. Kennewick and Connell have already been visited and Pasco will host it Aug. 20. 

The festival isn’t cheap, but Orozco said funding from Hanford Mission Integration Solutions made it possible. 

“Thanks to a partnership with HMIS, it allowed us to kind of have a little bit more spending money to bring in a ton of new things,” he said.