Last week’s featured #HMNSBlockParty creation is by Fritz (age: 12):

Want to get your engineering handwork featured? Drop by our Block Party interactive play area and try your own hand building a gravity-defying masterpiece. Tag your photos with #HMNSBlockParty.

Lecture – Creation of the World, Ancient Egyptian Creation Myths by Regine Schulz
Monday, April 18
2:30 p.m.
The ancient Egyptian religious system was one of the most successful and longest-lasting in antiquity. The success was based on a staggering of the ancient openness and adaptability of the system that could respond flexibly to problems, changing needs or new insights. Therefore, divergent conceptions and ritual traditions were combined without compromising the underlying ideas and structures. From today’s perspective, the explanatory models of the ancient Egyptians dealing with questions about the origin and preservation of the world reveals an almost modern acting cognitive interest and a very rational use of the time of the facts available. Their pursuit of authentic metaphysical truths has been therefore never far from reality, but very closely linked to the observation and analysis of their environment. Here, they were concerned with the determination of the laws and the expected, resulting effectiveness of their actions on a practical and ritual level. The lecture will introduce to the main ontological question and answers of ancient Egyptian theologists.

Lecture – The McFerrin Fabergé Collection: A Collector’s Tale by Dorothy McFerrin
Monday, April 18
6:30 p.m.
Providing an insider’s perspective on collecting priceless gemstone pieces, collector Dorothy McFerrin will share entertaining tales of the acquisitions for the McFerrin Fabergé Collection, one of the largest collections of Fabergé in the world. From the time it was created in Imperial Russia to arriving in Houston in recent years, every priceless piece has a special history. 
This program is cosponsored by Rice University’s Glasscock School of Continuing Studies

Class – Amber Workshop
Tuesday, April 19
6:00 p.m.
Join paleontologist David Temple for an examination of these amazing natural time capsules. This amber workshop includes time in the Amber Secrets, Feathers from the Age of Dinosaurs exhibition, Morian Hall of Paleontology, and in the classroom where you will polish a piece of raw amber that will be yours to keep.

Cultural Feast – Amazonian Culinary Adventure
Wednesday, April 20
7:00 p.m.
During the 16th century, Spanish and Portuguese explorers searching for gold and other valuable commodities in the Amazon often suffered from food shortages. They had little or no interest in the exotic flora on which the native population thrived. With more scientific exploration by scholars beginning in the 18th century, the value of many of the native Amazonian plants and trees was soon recognized, as reflected in their impact on industry, medicine and cuisine. Chef David Cordúa will create innovative dishes featuring ingredients native to the Amazon, while culinary historian Merrianne Timko places the edible Amazon in historical context.

Class – Life in the Permian and Mesozoic: Dinosaurs, their Kin and Contemporaries
Saturday, April 23
9:00 a.m.
Go behind-the-scenes in the Museum’s staff training lab where hundreds of specimens are uniquely presented in a hands-on road maps. With a particular focus on individual species not seen in many museums, this course will focus solely on the dinosaurs and the reptiles that preceded them and how the formation and break up of Pangaea affected dinosaur evolution. A first in this series of classes, we will look at the geologic conditions of the late Paleozoic and Mesozoic starting from the Early Permian to the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. This workshop includes time in the Hall of Paleontology. The instructor is geologist and paleontologist James Washington, HMNS staff trainer. Class size is limited.

Class – Cenozoic, the Age of Mammals: Life after Dinosaurs
Saturday, April 23
1:00 p.m.
A trip to zoos, parks and your backyard will never be the same!
Go behind-the-scenes in the Museum’s staff training lab where hundreds of specimens are uniquely presented in a hands-on road maps. This course will focus on the evolution of mammals from the moment the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct. With a forty foot hand drawn phylogenetic (family) tree created by the teacher and over one hundred models; you will review each of the major mammal groups in the fossil record and their relationship to species living today. This workshop includes time in the Hall of Paleontology, Hall of African Wildlife, and Hall of Texas Wildlife. The instructor is geologist and paleontologist James Washington, HMNS staff trainer. Class size is limited.