Tag Archives: Class

Sweet lobotomies: A sugar skull how-to for fellow craft addicts

Published by on in Education
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Fall is a favorite time of year for many people in the Education Department. The summer rush is over, the weather has gone from sweltering to just hot and Dia De Los Muertos is approaching. When it comes to Day of the Dead crafts, some might say we have an addiction. But we don’t! We can stop crafting whenever we want to … we just don’t want to.

To share in the spirit of this holiday for craft addicts, we’re going to show you how to make sugar skulls. They are fun and easy, but you should be prepared to get a little sticky, and the process does take a bit of time.

Completed sugar skull!Ingredients:
5 lbs of sugar
¼ cup of meringue powder
3+ tablespoons of water

Supplies:
A big bowl
A sugar skull mold (see notes below)
Scraps of cardboard sized to your mold
Your hands (because a spoon just doesn’t cut it!)

Procedure:
1.    Dump your 5 lbs. bag of sugar into your bowl.
2.    Add ¼ cup of meringue powder. We used a rounded ¼ cup, so precision isn’t super important here. Meringue powder is widely available at any store selling cake decorating supplies.

Sweet lobotomy! A sugar skull how-to3.    Mix the sugar and powder with your hands.
4.    Add 3 tablespoons of water half a tablespoon at a time and mix with your hands. You are aiming for the sugar to stick to itself. To test this, sprinkle a handful into your open palm. Close that palm into a fist and then open your hand. If the sugar stays in the shape of your closed fist — however briefly — you’ve got a winner.  If it is too powdery or won’t stick, add more water. If it is too mushy, add a bit more sugar.
5.    Once you’ve got it to the right consistency, get your mold. We’ve cut ours apart for ease of use, but you can leave them as a whole sheet too.
6.    Put the mold in one of your hands face down.
7.    Pack the sugar mixture into the mold like you would brown sugar for baking.  It is okay if it is overly full as long as it is tightly packed.
8.    Using your cardboard scrap, scrape the excess sugar off and back into the bowl.  Your skull’s back, if viewed from the side, should be totally flat.
9.    Place the cardboard scrap on the back of your skull so it covers all the sugar.

Sweet lobotomy! A sugar skull how-to10.    Press the mold and cardboard together.

Sweet lobotomy! A sugar skull how-to11.    Flip!

Sweet lobotomy! A sugar skull how-to12.    Place both pieces on the counter together.
13.    Lift the mold off.  Ta-da!

Sweet lobotomy! A sugar skull how-to14.    Repeat this process, making sure to make enough backs and fronts. Making sugar skulls is a very forgiving process. If you aren’t 100 percent satisfied with your work, dump it back into the bowl and start over. If your skull is dried and has a defect, cover the defect with icing.  No worries!
15.    After 4 to 8 hours, depending on the humidity, your skulls should be stiff to the touch and you can gently pop them off the cardboard.
16.    Take a skull and place it in your hand face down.
17.    With a metal spoon, lobotomize your sugar skull. You will scoop out all the inside goodness and put it back in your bowl.  If your skull isn’t dry enough, it will crumble in your hand. This isn’t a problem – just wet your hand, mix up the bits and do it again. If your skull is too hard, you won’t get any scoopings. This isn’t the worst thing in the world, either, but no scoopings means heavier skulls and it is a bit wasteful.

Sweet lobotomy! A sugar skull how-to18.    Re-wet the scoopings, if necessary, and use them to make a few more skulls!

Sweet lobotomy! A sugar skull how-to19.    Stay tuned for a second post on how to make royal icing to cement and decorate your skulls.

If you are nervous about the process, don’t have the time or just don’t want your floors to be sticky, join us on Monday Oct. 22, for an evening workshop on Day of the Dead and Sugar Skulls.

Editors’ Notes:
If you live in Houston, then you’re in for a treat. Casa Ramirez in the Heights is your one-stop-shop for Day of the Dead items, including a variety of sugar skull molds. Senor Ramirez is old school, however, so there is no website and definitely no online ordering option. This is offset by the instant gratification of walking away with your molds and not having to pay shipping.

If you are not from Houston, you might want to check out MexicanSugarSkull.com, a pretty terrific online store that sells just about anything you can imagine when it comes to Dia de Los Muertos. Happy lobotomizing!

LEGO my Robotics! New course to be offered at HMNS Main and HMNS at Sugar Land beginning in September

Published by on in Education
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HMNS is launching a new after-school LEGO Robotics program this fall at HMNS’ main campus and at HMNS Sugar Land.

The program is modeled after our popular Xplorations summer course and spans 10 weeks, beginning Sept. 11 at HMNS and Sept. 13 at HMNS Sugar Land.

LEGO RoboticsClass will be held once a week on Thursday afternoons from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at both locations. Students will explore the basics of NXT Robotics Engineering, building models with the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT system and then using a computer to program the models and manipulate them to obey commands.

Students can compete with other teams to finish challenges and earn the top spot on the class leaderboard.

LEGO RoboticsPlease note that the course is limited to 16 students grades 4 through 7 at each location. Pricing is $240 for non-members, $190 for members.

To learn more about LEGO Robotics at HMNS (Sept. 11 through Nov. 13) and HMNS Sugar Land (Sept. 13 through Nov. 15) and register for class, click here.

Stage-five clingers: Learn to grow epiphytes with Zac Saturday, March 24

Published by on in Plants & Insects
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As the horticulturist for the Cockrell Butterfly Center conservatory, I get asked a plethora of gardening questions. The most frequently asked question (other than “How’s Lois?”) has got to be “How do you get your orchids to grow on trees?”

Orchid Show at HMNS!

I explain to visitors that most orchids are epiphytic, which means that they grow on the trunk and branches of larger trees. To do this, they have developed ingenious ways to obtain water and nutrients without the need of soil. Not to be confused with parasites, epiphytes take nothing from the tree they attach themselves to. Notable examples include ferns, orchids and bromeliads, but the most familiar epiphyte to people here in the south is a wispy bromeliad by the name of Spanish moss.

There seems to be a common misconception that growing orchids is reserved for only the most experienced gardeners, but from my experience, this is not always the case. In fact, orchids seem to thrive on neglect; the most common cause of orchid death is over-watering.

epiphyte orchid

To learn more tips and tricks for epiphyte growing, join me for the HMNS adult education class How to Grow Orchids, Bromeliads and Other “Air Plants”  from 9 to 11 a.m. this Saturday the 24th in the Cockrell Butterfly Center. The class includes a behind-the-scenes tour of the Butterfly Center, followed by a hands-on class where attendees will learn how to propagate, divide, mount and fertilize their own epiphytes. And finally, everyone goes home with their very own orchid to start (or add to) their collection!

What kingdom are you from?

Published by on in Lucy's Legacy
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We’ve seen how Carl Linnaeus’s system classifies Lucy. How is the classification that refers to her different from the one that refers to us?

Applied to humans, a Linnaean chart could be filled out in the following way. (Notice the prevalence of Greek and Latin terminology.)

Domain: Eukaryota – containing all organisms which have cells with a nucleus.

Kingdom: Animalia – including organisms with eukaryotic cells that have a cell membrane but lack a cell wall, are multicellular, and heterotrophic (meaning that they cannot synthesize their own food, as plants do.)

Phylum: Chordata – including animals with a notochord, dorsal nerve cord, and pharyngeal gill slits.

Subphylum: Vertebrata – animals possessing a backbone, which may be made of cartilage, to protect the dorsal nerve cord.

Class: Mammalia – endothermic vertebrates with hair and mammary glands which, in females, secrete milk to nourish the young.

Subclass: Placentalia – including animals that give birth to live young after a full, internal gestation period.

Order: Primates – including animals with a collar bone, eyes that face forward, grasping hands with fingers, and two types of teeth: incisors and molars. 

Family: Hominidae – including primates with upright posture, a large brain, stereoscopic vision, a flat face, and hands and feet with different specializations (such as grasping and walking).

Genus: Homo – having an s-curved spine, “man.”

Species: Homo sapiens – characterized by a high forehead, well-developed chin, and thin skull bones.

While Latin and Greek are no longer used when scientists write or e-mail each other, these languages continue to survive in the names given to plants and animals. For those few among us who did study Latin and Greek, here is one practical application of hours and hours of learning vocabulary and conjugating verbs: it allows one to more easily see the origins of the terms used and thus facilitates our understanding of what is meant.

For all those others who did not study these ancient languages, consider the old saying “The more it changes…”