The Houston Museum of Natural Science has undergone a few renovations in recent years and plans to update even more halls into contemporary and accessible spaces. The most recent to reopen is the beloved Hall of Ancient Egypt, most recent hall to reopen, has been recognized with an Illuminating Engineering Society’s 2022 IES Illumination Award. […]
We understand. By now you probably have a good amount of cabin fever still burning from the inside out after being cooped up all of 2020 and you’re itching to get back into the exhibit halls. Yet with announcement after announcement of this renovation and that opening exhibit, you may be a bit overwhelmed and […]
All of us in the Youth Education Programs department at the Houston Museum of Natural Science started as volunteers, part-time, or interns. We all came from different backgrounds, departments and experiences. The thing we have in common (other than we each bring our own flavor of nerd to the department) is that we all got […]
by Gail Peterkin, HMNS Volunteer “Donate your body to science — volunteer at the Houston Museum of Natural Science!” Or so the tagline goes. Apparently, some volunteers have interpreted the phrase quite literally, and a number of volunteers have spent many years, if not decades, as HMNS volunteers. HMNS currently has 610 active volunteers at […]
At the Houston Museum of Natural Science, we know that people are as much a part of natural science as rocks and dinosaurs. That’s why we love social studies and maintain exhibits like the John P. McGovern Hall of the Americas and the Hall of Ancient Egypt. We find the development of societies fascinating! The […]
by Gillian Callan Egyptian hieroglyphs. Once thought to be magic writings that contained the secrets to life, they were deciphered by Thomas Young and Jean Francois Champollion in the early 1800’s. What mysteries did they contain? For the majority of the visitors to the Hall of Ancient Egypt, the glyphs are still a mystery – […]
Over the weekend in Cairo, conflict broke out in the archaeology community. Ground-penetrating radar has revealed peculiar results that some believe indicate additional rooms behind a solid wall in Tutankhamun’s tomb. Others reject this new theory. British Egyptologist Nicolas Reeves offered up this theory last year following scanning results that he says suggest two open […]
by Tom Hardwick and Dirk van Tuerenhout When the Houston Museum of Natural Science planned our Hall of Ancient Egypt, filling its 11,000 square feet with artifacts was not an easy job. Our own collection of Egyptian material is rather small, and that made looking for long-term loans from other museums a logical — and […]
by Karen Whitley Every year we see hundreds of birthday cakes, and we are blown away (candle pun intended) by some of the creations parents bring in! From the cakes that defy gravity to the ones we have to use careful geometry to cut, we are always excited to see what a party brings in. Here’s […]
by Katie Conlan With our world-class collections, the Houston Museum of Natural Science is a popular place to take selfies. Just search #HMNS on Facebook or Instagram and you’ll find a trove of smiling faces in front of dinosaurs or having close encounters with the resident butterflies! Who wouldn’t want a selfie with a Tyrannosaurus […]
