Membership gets you more than just awesome access to our permanent exhibitions – join us for free and discounted special members only and member preview events all year! Members also enjoy reduced rates for adult classes, lectures, travel, and more. Purchase your membership today, and use code ROAR15 at checkout.
Senior Social – Morian Hall of Paleontology
July 13, 2022, 8:30 AM
Rise and shine, and brunch with the dinosaurs! During this installation of Senior Social, you’ll get a chance to tour the Morian Hall of Paleontology as one of our knowledgeable docents guides you through the exhibit. After your tour (or before if you arrive hungry!), head to the Moran Lecture Hall to enjoy a delicious brunch, complete with fried chicken biscuit sandwiches. Just don’t tell the T.rex that you plan on dining on one of its descendants!
Member Event: Madam Butterfly, Not Really But Better
July 20, 2022, 6:30 PM
The Cockrell Butterfly Center might be famous for its butterflies, but you’ll find so much more inside our simulated rainforest and the Brown Hall of Entomology! Make history with us by pioneering the new all-American sport everyone will be buzzing about – roach racing! And don’t forget a visit to our petting zoo filled with cute little critters… that’s right, we think our insects are cute and cuddly, and you should too! Finish off your night with a photo op (we can neither confirm nor deny that a celebrity from the Cockrell Butterfly Center will be making an appearance).
World Trekkers: Kenya
July 29, 2022, 6:30 PM
A country famous for its vast wildlife preserves (and animals) and rich cultural customs, Kenya is a perfect destination for every little adventurer! But you don’t have to cross the Atlantic Ocean to experience the diverse traditions of Kenya! Discover the history and heritage of Kenya through the spoken word and music as celebrated storyteller Elizabeth Kahura joins us at HMNS and shares tales, legends, and lore about this beautiful country and all its inhabitants. Try your hand at being an artisan as you create your own warrior shield and necklace at one of our crafting stations, or look on as an East African drum circle performs authentic percussive music. No matter what, this is a trip to HMNS that you won’t want to miss!
Junior Paleontologist (Ages 6-7) **In Person**
Limited Dates and Times
Meet the king of the dinosaurs up close and personal! Discover how the T. rex at our museum lived and died – and how it was discovered by paleontologists. Find out what features give these incredible “creatures: their names, go on a mock dig and touch real dinosaur bones!
Paleontology 101 (Ages 10-12)
May 31, 2022 – 10:00 AM / June 6, 2022 – 10:00 AM
Explore the mysteries of prehistoric Earth. Discover what happened to the wooly mammoths and find out which ancient creatures once roamed your own backyard! Excavate your own Green River fish from stone in a kit you get to bring home.
FOR ADULTS
Lecture – The Last Days of the Dinosaurs with Riley Black
Tuesday, July 19, 6:30 p.m.
The worst day in Earth’s history happened in the spring. About 66 million years ago, as flowers were beginning to bloom and dinosaurs were courting, an immense asteroid struck the planet and sparked the world’s Fifth Mass Extinction. An intense heat pulse roasted a great deal of the planet’s surface, followed by years of impact winter that decimated the dinosaurs and other forms of ancient life. And yet life continued and even thrived in the aftermath, marking the beginnings of the world as we know it today.
Author and paleontologist Riley Black will walk you through what happened in the second, the hour, the day, the week, the month, and million years after impact and how one of life’s greatest tragedies set the stage for a story of incredible resilience.
Virtual simulcast tickets can be found here.
Class – Flint Knapping
Thursday, June 9, 6:30 p.m.
Harder. Sharper. Primitive? Join us for a discussion of the 3+ million-year history of flintknapping, the process by which tools are made from some of the most common rocks on our planet. A short presentation will be followed by a live demonstration of the core techniques used by ancient and modern people alike and leave with your own piece of ancient technology to call your own.
BTS – Fossil Prep Lab Experience
Thursday, June 16, 6:30 p.m.
In a process broadly called “preparation,” fossils are carefully extracted from their encapsulating matrix. Depending on the type of fossil and the rock surrounding it, many different techniques are employed. In this hands-on tour of the HMNS Fossil Prep Lab, you can try your hand at various techniques paleontologists use to take fossils from excavation to exhibition.
BTS – Six Degrees of Science: Dinosaurs of the Cretaceous
Tuesday, June 21, 6:30 p.m.
The Cretaceous Period brought us the most dangerous herbivore of all time, the mighty Triceratops. Join James E. Washington III and learn how our triceratops specimen with mummified skin has helped science proves new information about these three-horned tanks. Our T. rex skeletons all tell a different story that helps piece together what life was like in the Cretaceous.
Lecture – Beyond the Exhibit: Dinosaurs from Around the World!
Tuesday, August 9, 6:30 p.m.
When people think of dinosaurs, they usually imagine Tyrannosaurs rex, Triceratops, and Stegosaurus to name a few. However, all those species come from what we now call the North American continent. Many other famous dinosaurs like Spinosaurus and Velociraptor come from Africa and Asia.
Professional Paleontologist and Science Educator, James Edward Washington III will tell the story of worlds lost by time and the weird and wonderful dinosaurs that inhabited them, many of which are surprisingly related and yet differ from our “local species.”
Virtual simulcast tickets can be found here.
Class – DIY IRL: Fossil Prep: Green River Fish
Thursday, August 18, 6:30 p.m.
A fossilized sub-tropical lake system discovered in Wyoming in 1856 has yielded thousands of Eocene-era fossilized fish. The Green River Formation is famous for its well-preserved fossil fish and other aquatic animals and flora. Delicate specimen details are revealed as you prep out your own Green River fossil fish from its matrix using the tools of the paleontology trade led by David Temple, HMNS assistant curator of Paleontology. Bring home a piece of the Eocene; your fish is yours to keep for your fossil collection.
Excursion – Road Trip! Core of the Earth. What Lies Beneath?
Saturday, June 11, 10:30 a.m.
Want to see what is deep beneath Earth’s surface? Join HMNS on a tour of the Bureau of Economic Geology’s Houston Research Center, which houses hundreds of thousands of core samples from deep within Earth. Learn what the core samples tell researchers about our planet by looking at a variety of spectacular cores illustrating various siliciclastic and carbonate depositional environments, such as deep-water mass transport deposits, paleo-karsts, valley fills, fluvial and shelf sandstones, and Cretaceous reef–this research center houses over 600,000 boxes of cores and cuttings from all over the world.