About Allison

After volunteering at HMNS since 1993, Allison joined HMNS full time in 2003. Her current job responsibilities include curating the education collections and keeping the summer camp classrooms stocked with materials, facilitating Education special events, and coordinating the Museum's overnight program. In her "spare time" she volunteers with the Junior League of Houston and spends her time in artistic pursuits.

Save The Date: GEMS on February 11, 2012!

Published by Allison on December 12, 2011 at 11:42 am in Education

We had a terrific time at the Girls Exploring Math and Science event last year on Saturday, February 19, 2011. The Museum was buzzing with lots of learning – songs about kinetic and potential energy, buzzing instruments made with straws, Popsicle sticks and rubber bands, and lots of “ah-hah” moments throughout the day!

We had a fabulous presenting sponsor in KBR and two of their engineers were our featured speakers, Rachel Amos and Elaine Jimenez. Rachel and Elaine shared with the GEMS attendees a bit about their careers in Mechanical Engineering with KBR, their education, some tips for aspiring young engineers and scientists, and even a little about what they loved about math and science as kids. Interactive booths were hosted throughout the building by students, girl scout troops and local organizations and companies - there was so much to learn everywhere you turned!

Girl Scout booths have just been accepted for GEMS 2012 and there are some exciting topics and new ideas I’m very excited to see.

We’re still accepting applications from School Groups for booths and if you’re just now considering hosting a booth with your friends or opening it up to your class for extra credit it’s time to get some brainstorming going!

What is a topic you’d like to know more about? What have you recently learned that you would want to share with your peers?

Here are a few links to sites that might inspire you for your awesome GEMS booth! Applications for school booths can be found online here at the HMNS website.

The Library of Congress – Everyday Mysteries

PBS.org’s Zoom for kids - this link is to the engineering section but they offer lots more if you click around

How Stuff Works - go ahead – ask how it works!

Penn State College of Agricultural Science – Food Science

Exploratorium.edu - so many cool things to explore!

I’m also including some fabulous outcomes provided by some of our super star 2011 presenters, the “Truth in Numbers” group and the Rice University Association for Women in Mathmatics both presented booths on the topic of statistics and asked visitors to participate in their experiments pulling samples and recording results!

We can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with for GEMS 2012!

Visitors were asked by the Rice University Association of Women in Mathmatics to open a funsize bag of M&M's candies and chart how many candies of each color were included.

GEMS (girls exploring math and science) at HMNS this Saturday!

Published by Allison on February 18, 2011 at 10:06 am in Education

This Saturday the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council are partnering to bring you the annual Girls Exploring Math and Science event at HMNS! The GEMS event is open to all ages and will begin at 9 a.m. and go until noon – there’s lots to see and do so I would recommend coming early!

Thanks to our fabulous presenting sponsor KBR we are able to offer the GEMS event free with HMNS general admission for the day!! That means this event is FREE for HMNS members and the regular price of $10 for children and $15 for adult non-members for the day. There’s no need to pre-register (unless you want to avoid the box office line on a Saturday morning) so we hope you’ll grab your family and head on over to HMNS for a little fun in learning with us this Saturday! Tickets are available online here.

We have a great line up of Girl Scout hosted booths who will be sharing lists of really fun science and math demonstrations and activities with visitors from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. Two KBR engineers will share with us their passion for science and math and a little about how they use their skills in their job in the Mechanical Engineering Department at KBR here in Houston. Want to come up with some questions to ask our visiting Engineers about their jobs – check out this website to find out more about engineering.

Since 2011 is the International Year of Chemistry we are also including a Cool Chemistry program for GEMS participants. The Cool Chemistry program is presented by our Science on Stage presenter here at the Museum and will include exciting reactions, and liquid nitrogen demonstrations! Science on Stage can be booked to visit your school – for more information email sos@hmns.org.

Don’t forget to visit our Community booths in the Grand Hall of the Museum during GEMS – here’s the line up of this year’s community partners; KBR, The Houston Zoo, Swift Energy Corporation, Fisher Science Education, The John C. Freeman Weather Museum, Downtown Aquarium, CB&I, MD Anderson, Society of Petroleum Engineers, Career Girls, Kinetic Energy, City of Houston Waterworks Education Center, Rice University Association for Women in Mathematics, The Center for Hearing and Speech, LyondellBasell and the Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Astronomy and Robotics groups.

Can’t wait to see everyone here on Saturday morning!

Free Event for Educators this Saturday!

Published by Allison on January 21, 2011 at 2:09 pm in Education

Museum Educators Open House

Tomorrow – January 22, 2011,
9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Thinking of including a trip to the Houston Museum District for your class? Interested in professional development opportunities at some of Houston’s coolest venues? Want a Museum docent or staff member to bring artifacts or demonstrations to your classroom for an extra boost before those standardized tests or just as a cool surprise for a great semester?

You can learn about what 42 of Houston’s Museums have to offer this Saturday as the Houston Museum District presents the Museum Educators Open House!

Museum Educators Open House is a conference style event free of charge for registered Educators from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. followed by the opportunity to visit participating Museums until their doors close on Saturday with your MEOH wristband!

HMNS is one of the host museums (all within walking distance) where many of the day’s presentations will be held in 14 of our classroom spaces in the lower level of the Museum. Educators who attend for at least 3 hours, attend at least 3 presentations and show up between 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. at one of the participating host museum’s registration table to trade in your “passport” for a certificate of attendance.

Extra special things that HMNS is offering for the Educators participating in MEOH 2011 include discounted tickets for educators to visit our special exhibitions Real Pirates and Forgotten Gateway - as well as an awesome 20% discount in the HMNS gift shop!

We hope to see you all here on Saturday!!

Night Owls enjoyed a little Midnight Madness!

Published by Allison on December 9, 2010 at 2:18 pm in Giant Screen Theatre

This Harry Potter attends Hogwarts Science Academy each summer during Xplorations Camp at HMNS!

Thank you to the 500+ people who came out for the Harry Potter Midnight Madness party before we premiered Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 on November 19 here at the Houston Museum of Natural Science!

We had a terrific time putting the event together and we’re so glad you all came out for the HP Premiere here at the Museum! If you haven’t seen the movie yet it’s still showing here at the HMNS Wortham IMAX Theatre – get your tickets here!

The crowds of Harry Potter fans began to arrive around 9pm and line up to pick up their tickets at the Museum box office. Some visitors arrived extra early for the 2:45am showing in order to enjoy our Midnight Madness festivities.

We also had some special guests to help us kick off the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows run at the Museum’s IMAX Theatre…

Wildlife Rehabilitation & Education joined us for the event and brought along two of their education ambassadors who happened to be owls. While the Harry Potter series features owls as “magical pets” and even as postal carriers it was a great opportunity for Hogwarts fans to see owls up close and personal and learn from the Wildlife Rehabilitation & Education representatives that not only are owls illegal to keep as pets but undesirable pets as well.

WR&E is doing incredible work assisting and rehabilitating injured and orphaned wildlife in our area and along the Gulf Coast. Visit their website at http://wrande.org/ to find out how you can help their effort to provide a safe environment for wildlife in need of help and also some helpful tips on how to respect the habitats of urban wildlife and prevent unwanted houseguests.

One of the Wildlife Rehabilitation & Education animal ambassadors (screech owl) sat nicely on his perch and observed the visitors in line to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in IMAX!

Smilebooth was here to capture some silly moments of costume characters and other muggles who showed up for the Midnight Madness event! To check out the photos of the midnight madness and the other cool events Smilebooth has attended go to www.smilebooth.com and email hello@smilebooth.com if you’re interested in having a smilebooth come to your next event! (I have to tell you, it’s pretty much the coolest thing ever and in fact my family’s holiday card last year was a smilebooth photo!)

We had some tasty treats provided by POParazzi’s Gourmet Popcorn that our visitors enjoyed as they anxiously awaited their opportunity to enter the IMAX for the movie! Who knew popcorn could be made in so many different flavors – with flavors like ‘snickers’ and ‘dill pickle’ and ‘taco’ I think have just about everyone’s tastes covered!

We saw a lot of great costumes in the crowd – several Harry and Luna costumes, a Professor McGonagall and even one costume of a portrait at the top of a moving staircase! One of our costume contest winners was actually a group costume who came as the Weasley Family! What do you think of the likeness?