A Letter From The President - HMNS

a letter from the presidentThe Houston Museum of Natural Science has seven uniqueOutreach Programs that travel throughout the Houston areaand beyond, offering students the experience of hands-onscience. Bugs on Wheels provides interactive encounterswith insects and other arthropods. The Halliburton DiscoveryDome, an inflatable, portable dome theater, brings BurkeBaker Planetarium programming to your school. Firstthrough fifth graders enjoy Docents to Go presentationson six topics ranging from Oceans to Texas Wildlife.Chevron Earth Science on Wheels brings hands-on geologyand paleontology to students from kindergarten throughhigh school. ConocoPhillips Science on Stage, a large-grouppresentation with student helpers, intrigues and amazesstudents with experiments in chemistry, energy and physics.Traveling Science Labs puts the excitement of live scienceexperiments in your classroom. El Paso Corporation Wildlifeon Wheels brings live reptiles, amphibians, vertebrates andinvertebrates to your classroom. Book our OutreachPrograms early, because their popularity continues toincrease each year.In the fall of 2010, it was hard to miss the towering cranethat appeared on Museum grounds as construction of theDan L Duncan Wing kicked into high gear. Museum staffand visitors alike watched with wonder as the buildingtook shape throughout the school year. When constructionconcludes in the spring of 2012, the Houston Museum ofNatural Science will have doubled the size of its exhibitionareas and classrooms. The addition of the new wing willvastly improve our ability to meet the goal of providingexemplary science education for our community.When schools visit the Museum, excitement buildsas students assemble in the Grand Hall, preparing toexperience the wonders of our world as they enter thepermanent exhibition halls—the Paleontology Hall, theWelch Chemistry Hall, the Wiess Energy Hall, the CullenHall of Gems and Minerals and the Lester and Sue SmithGem Vault, the Farish Hall of Texas Wildlife, the FrensleyHall of African Wildlife, the Strake Hall of Malacology, theMcGovern Hall of the Americas, “Do the Weather withGene Norman” presented by KHOU-TV Channel 11,the Earth Forum, and Searching for Eternity: Life andDeath in Ancient Egypt. Across the Grand Hall, theWortham IMAX ® Theatre immerses students inenvironments they might otherwise not encounter; theBurke Baker Planetarium propels students to space andbeyond; and the unique beauty of the Cockrell ButterflyCenter captivates all visitors. Other programs exclusiveto HMNS include our popular Science Labs for grades onethrough eight, SS Legacy Challenger Center missions to theMoon and back, and Early Investigations Tours for kids inkindergarten through third grade.The Museum provides curriculum materials for bothpermanent and special exhibitions based on each grade’sinterdisciplinary TEKS objectives. To prepare your studentsto get the most from their Museum visit, browse theTEKS-based curriculum on our website at www.hmns.org and click on the “Education” tab. Our curriculum—inMicrosoft Word documents so you can adjust it to meetyour needs—is designed to target the greatest number ofTEKS objectives for each grade.HMNS is pleased to provide professional developmentopportunities for educators. For the 2011-12 school yearwe are once again offering a TAGT approved Gifted/Talentedworkshop, “Make a Difference…Differentiate,” that willprovide 6 hours of GT credit. We are also continuing to offera “Fundamentals of Inquiry in Science” three-day workshopproviding 18 hours CPE credit, and a “Formative Assessment”one-day workshop providing 6 hours of CPE credit.We hope that the 2011-2012 Educator’s Guide will beuseful as you prepare for another outstanding school year.As always, we here at HMNS are delighted to be a part ofyour educational toolkit.Sincerely,Joel A. BartschPresident