Tag Archives: Science

Get your hands on science!

Published by on in Education
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Terrence McGovern, a volunteer here at HMNS, does several chemistry shows a week to help teach the basics to our visitors. His show, geared towards both kids and adults, is a great way to see science in action.

Terrence explains the principles of density, acids and bases, and polymers in a way that makes it easy to understand no matter what your age is or your background in chemistry. A simple experiment with an egg, saltwater and freshwater helps to show how density affects whether or not items will float.

 Terrence McGovern demonstrates how density works
with the help of a member of the audience.

Terrence also shows how acid and bases can react with one another. Filling a bottle with vinegar (an acid) and placing a little baking soda (a base) in a balloon, he shows how the two react to form a gas that inflates the balloon.

 
 Chemical Reaction!

So come on down to HMNS and see one of Terrence’s many shows and learn all about chemistry.

This show is free for patrons with a ticket for our exhibition halls. For more information and show times, call the box office at 713-639-4629.

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

Published by on in Education
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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.

yahtzee

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.

5 senses

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!

Flickr Photo of the Month: Trappings of Yingpan Man [Dec. 2010]

Published by on in Anthropology
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Trappings of Yingpan Man. 3rd - 4th century
Trappings of Yingpan Man. 3rd – 4th century by cybertoad, on Flickr.
Posted here with permission.

There are some amazing photographers that wander the halls of HMNS, and when we’re lucky, they share what they capture in our HMNS Flickr pool. This month, we’re re-starting a series where we’ll share one of these photos on the blog each month.

Elaine (cybertoad on Flickr) took this photo during a Flickr meetup in our current Secrets of the Silk Road exhibition. From the photographer:

The Beauty of Xioahe may have been the exhibit’s celebrity but the Yingpan Man still captured me. His simple funerary mask with the delicately painted eyebrows and the gold leaf evoke a sense of elegance and peace that I hope he carried with him into the after life.

Inspired? Most of the Museum’s galleries are open for photography, and we’d love for you to share your shots with us on Flickr, Facebook or Twitter. Check out the HMNS photo policy for guidelines.

Photography is prohibited in this exhibition during general hours. If you’d like to join one of our Flickr meetups, check out our Flickr group Discussions page for updates on upcoming events.

Want to see Yingpan Man for yourself? Secrets of the Silk Road is only on display for a few more weeks!

Science in Action: Live Tweeting Fossil Snake Scanning Friday

Published by on in Paleontology
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Ever wondered where snakes come from? Why they’re poisonous? How they move so quickly? Or, how a a python could eat an alligator? Whether they freak you out or fascinate you, snakes are an ancient species with much to tell us about the process of evolution.

Enter Brazilian paleontologist Hussam Zaher and a one-of-a-kind, 50-million year old fossil snake from the Green River formation in Wyoming.

Snake Eye
Snake Eye by Care_SMC on Flickr

Zaher (professor and curator of the collections of Herpetology and Paleontology at the Museu de Zoologia of the Universidade de São Paulo) is currently in Houston to investigate this unique fossil, which is thought to be the evolutionary link between snakes who take a lot of small bites to eat their prey and snakes who swallow their prey whole (a la the famed alligator-hungry python linked above).

This Friday at 10 am, the fossil will undergo a 64-slice CT scan at The Methodist Hospital, giving Zaher a peek at the previously-unseen inside and underside. The cross-sectional images will allow him to examine the internal structure of the snake’s brain cavity to more accurately place it within the context of snake evolution.

We’ll be there to bring you the science as it is uncovered, by live tweeting (follow @hmns and #snakefossil) the scanning process on Friday morning. We’ll also be getting behind-the-scenes pictures for our Flickr photostream and a video reaction from Zaher once the fossil has been scanned that we’ll post as soon as we can.

Check out the blog tomorrow for a pre-scan post from Zaher. If you’ve got any specific questions you’d like answered, leave them in the comments!