The Springfield Museums’ monthly tour and lecture schedule continues in April with the popular Thursday Museums à la Carte lectures, held weekly at 12:15 p.m. in the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts. Admission is $4 ($2 for members of the Springfield Museums); visitors are invited to bring lunch (cookies and coffee are provided). The programs are sponsored by Big Y World Class Market. For more information about Museums à la Carte, call 413.263.6800, ext. 488. This month’s lectures include:

• April 3 – Abigail’s Garden: The History of a New England Garden. Lauren Ellen Pazzano, landscape historian, shares the rich history and hidden horticultural secrets found at Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, MA.
• April 10 – Futurescape Springfield. Gretchen Gano, lecturer, and Krista Harper, associ¬ate professor, UMass Amherst, detail how Springfield is one of six Futurescape Cities exploring how to use new technologies to re-invent themselves.
• April 17 – From the Great Blasket to America: The Last Memoir by an Islander; Michael J. Carney and Gerald W. Hayes, co-authors. One man’s persistent efforts to preserve Irish culture in America and the memory of The Great Blasket.

(No lecture April 24)

Also scheduled in April are informal half-hour “mini-tours” every Sunday at 1 PM by volunteer docent educators. The tours highlight a different element of the unique collections of one of the four museums, and are free with Museum admission (check with the Welcome Center staff or the Museums’ website for an updated schedule of mini-tours). Topics for April are:

• April 6 (special time: 11am and Noon) – Festival of Flowers – D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts, G.W.V. Smith Art Museum.
• April 13 – Made in the Valley-Machining and Metal Working in the Pioneer Valley.  Pat Storey, Wood Museum of Springfield History  
• April 20 – Easter Sunday, no mini-tour
• April 27 – Steampunk Springfield: Humachines. Xela Shultis, G.W.V. Smith Art Museum.

Monthly Walking Tours are presented in collaboration with the Armoury-Quadrangle Civic Association (AQCA). On April 12 at 10:30 a.m., join artist James Kitchen, one of the featured artists in the Steampunk Springfield exhibition, for a tour and discussion of his giant public art sculptures, all made from recycled material and historical items from Western Massachusetts. Walking tours are free for Springfield Museums and AQCA members, $5 nonmembers, and start at the Museums’ Welcome Center.