08 Apr 2019

Inspiring younger audiences

What is the Young Explorers' Club, and how did it come about? Read all about our exciting new Club here!

Inspiring younger audiences

In March 2019, the Society was excited to launch our new Young Explorers’ Club. For several years, supporters of the Society had asked us to engage and inspire younger audiences and to ignite a passion in them for the archaeology and history of Egypt and Sudan. The Young Explorers’ Club is an opportunity for the EES to do this in a way that is sustainable and educational.

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Conversations since 2015 with EES volunteer (and now EES Local Ambassador) Ildikó Kalnoky provided the inspiration for the Society to begin considering various ways in which to reach younger audiences through schools, educational groups, and museums. In 2018, Ildiko began running workshops in schools based on EES-developed lesson plans and has since been assisting the Society in creating new, exciting, and accessible educational content for children in her capacity as an EES Local Ambassador. The new Club since arose from those conversations and works alongside our Local Ambassador Programme launched in 2018.

Stephanie Boonstra took on the role of Editor for a new Young Explorers’ Club magazine while Jan Geisbusch designed the format with content and help from Leena Pekkalainen (EES supporter and designer of Ta-Miu, the Young Explorers’ Club mascot - above) and Simon Watkins from Ink-Design for Print. Content for the magazine and website has been freely provided by supporters of the Society who – like us – want to inspire the next generation of members. All experts in their fields, together we wish to present collections from around the UK alongside career advice, reading materials, and activities to show that learning Egyptology should be fun and exciting, as well as constructive and educational.

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The Greater Manchester Young Archaeologists Club enjoying free copies. Image by Ian Trumble, Curator of Bolton's Egypt and EES Local Ambassador. 

We’re delighted that primary school teachers have worked with us to ensure that the content is accessible to the 8-16 year old range we have selected as well as using the skills among our members to produce materials that fills a gap in the educational market.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has been involved in the Young Explorers’ Club so far. Don’t forget, you’re only as old as you feel – plenty of the content is fun for adults too…

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