Last week’s featured #HMNSBlockParty creation is by Cameron (age: 6):

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.

Behind-the-Scenes Tour – HMNS Offsite Collections Storage
Monday, Apr. 4
1:30 p.m. & 6:00 p.m.
Millions of artifacts and specimens are housed at the Museum’s offsite collections storage. For the first time ever, HMNS is allowing the public to tour this facility. Participants will see old favorites no longer on display, like the shrunken heads from the Amazon, and new acquisitions that have not been seen by the public yet, including a giant African elephant. This truly behind-the-scenes tour of the museum collections will be led by Lisa Rebori, HMNS VP of collections.

Lecture – Film Screening – Stonehenge Bringing Back The Dead
Wednesday, Apr. 6
6:30 p.m.
The discovery and analysis of 63 bodies buried beneath Stonehenge has overturned the accepted view on construction and use of perhaps the greatest prehistoric monuments. This film reveals vital clues to this ancient puzzle of the Neolithic period.
Join Dr. Dirk Van Tuerenhout for the Texas premiere of Secrets of Stonehenge Skeletons. This is a one-night only screening.
This event is cosponsored by AIA, Houston Society with support from Apache.

Lecture – Solving Stonehenge: New Discoveries by Michael Parker-Pearson
Thursday, Apr. 7
6:30 p.m.
Stonehenge still has secrets to reveal. Since 2003, a new era of archaeological investigation of this enigmatic Neolithic monument has produced a wealth of new information about Stonehenge and the people who built it. The research of the Stonehenge Riverside Project lead by Dr. Michael Parker-Pearson and other investigations are providing major insights into the purpose of Stonehenge, the lives of its creators, and reason that some stones came from nearly 200 miles away.
This lecture is cosponsored by AIA, Houston Society with support from Apache.

Class – Advanced Nature Photography Workshop
Friday, Apr. 8
2:30 p.m.
Take your photography to the next level! Professional nature photographer and instructor Amy Shutt will teach you best practices and advanced techniques for mastering composition and focus in nature, landscapes, wildlife and still-life photography, including panoramas and HDR. This class will prepare you to capture each shot exactly how you envision, instead of missing it and feeling frustrated and discouraged.

Spring Plant Sale
Saturday, Apr. 9
8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. (or until sold out)
Interested in Butterfly Gardening? The perfect opportunity to get started awaits you twice each year, at the Cockrell Butterfly Center’s semi-annual plant sales! Once in spring and once in fall, we offer a wide variety of nectar plants for butterflies and host plants for their caterpillars. Plenty of experts are on hand to answer your butterfly gardening questions and help you to create the perfect butterfly habitat – right in your own backyard.

Class – Contain Yourself: Organic Gardening for City Lifestyles
Saturday, Apr. 9
9:30 a.m.
You want to grow your own food, but your outdoor space is limited. What to do if you live in a townhouse with a small yard or an apartment with a balcony? Container gardening is your answer. Learn what kind of containers, soils and varieties of plants to use when growing fruit trees, herbs, vegetables and flowers.
Sponsored by Urban Harvest.

Class – Nature Photography Workshop
Saturday, Apr. 9
2:30 p.m.
In this exotic photography adventure, you will learn how to get the best nature shots possible when photographing animals, insects and flora. Professional animal and nature photographer and instructor Amy Shutt will teach you the basics of your DSLR camera leaving you an understanding of how to use aperture, shutter speed, and ISO together to get out of auto mode. You will then venture out to photograph the insects, animals, flowers and plants in the Cockrell Butterfly Center. You will also work on photographing the waterfall to get soft velvety water shots. All participants will receive one-on-one instruction with their equipment.