Houstonia’s The Must List tells you about something going on in Houston that you absolutely cannot miss.

Most Houstonians can name their favorite Houston Museum of Natural Science exhibit, even if they have to dig deep into recollections of childhood field trips or family outings. Maybe they wore bright clothes that attracted intrigue from the living lepidoptery collection at the Cockrell Butterfly Center. Maybe they fell in love with the stars as they watched dazzling constellations projected onto the planetarium’s domed ceiling. Or maybe they just love some good old-fashioned dinosaur bones. (Who doesn’t?)

The museum’s “$2sday” lecture series, held on the first Tuesday of every month, launched this past summer to spark the same sense of wonder and discovery, where visitors can learn more about the exhibitions they love, or even find some new favorites. HMNS already offers free admission every Tuesday during the last three hours of the day, which vice president of education Nicole Temple says attracts a difference audience.

“There’s a lot of people who are from out of town, who are tourists,” she says. “There are a lot of people who don’t necessarily see the museum as being a place that they would come to regularly.”

As the name makes obvious, the half-hour $2sday lectures cost only a couple of dollars. Eager visitors take note: A talk will not be held in November (to encourage Houstonians to vote instead, as the first Tuesday of the month is Election Day), but you can mark your calendars now for December 3. Temple says that between 20 to 50 people show up to each event, and the numbers have been increasing steadily as more museum attendees learn about the lectures.

Topics range from the popular-with-kids, like sharks and dinosaurs, to those the museum staff believe need more attention and understanding, such as this month’s past $2sday talk on Indigenous cultures by curator of anthropology Dr. Dirk Van Tuerenhout. All these subjects correspond directly with HMNS’s holdings, allowing visitors to go on to browse the permanent and temporary exhibitions with fresh perspectives.

Regular museum patrons are of course enthusiastically welcome to attend, though Temple and her team structure $2sday mainly to educate those who don’t get an opportunity to head over to HMNS often. Unfamiliar visitors can take advantage of these low-cost, bite-size lectures to better appreciate what HMNS has to offer.

“If you are a frequent museumgoer, you’re more literate about things that we have in the museum, or literate about science. You’re more familiar about our deal in general,” she says. “This is for those folks for whom maybe this is a special treat getting to come, or maybe they don’t come but once a year. We wanted to make sure that we have something that was of interest to people who are less familiar with the museum.”

Lauren Davidson, director of the Cockrell Butterfly Center at HMNS, is currently working on a $2sday talk of her own. She hasn’t yet decided on a topic, though she’s considering discussing the work the museum does with katydid breeding, since the information isn’t easily accessible to the general public.

“We love being able to share those small projects that give an idea, a hint, into what happens behind the scenes. A lot of people don’t know that we raise insects at the Butterfly Center,” Davidson says. “The ones that we have on display have to come from somewhere, right?”

Whatever subject she decides on will fall in line with the $2sday goals of giving HMNS visitors, be they regulars, first-timers, or one-offs, a glimpse beyond the storied exhibition halls. Davidson considers these lectures a way to “spark curiosity with the public,” encouraging further inquiry into the topics at hand both on the museum’s campus and beyond.

“We are so passionate about science and so passionate about learning. There are a lot of people who do not feel comfortable with science or engineering or math or technology or any of those things, because they think you have to know everything in order to feel comfortable in that space,” Temple says. “That is not true. You just have to be willing to keep learning. I learn new things every day. You can, too.”