Visit of Mensun Bound and Colin Teague to Athy's Shackleton Museum

The Shackleton Museum in Athy recently played host to two interesting visitors from abroad. Both of them were drawn to the Shackleton exhibit which remains the only permanent exhibition devoted to Shackleton anywhere in the world. First was Colin Teague whom came on behalf of ‘Reach the World’ which is a United States based educational organisation which uses a virtual platform to support educational projects all over the world. One of their current projects is linked to the forthcoming search for Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance. The Endurance was the ship Shackleton used for the planned traverse of the Antarctic in 1914. As many of us will know the ship got trapped in the ice in late December 1914 and Shackleton and his men were to remain marooned on their ship until the following October. In late October 1915 the Endurance was enveloped in ice, later crushed by the ice and ultimately sank. What followed thereafter was the wonderous escape from the Antarctic led by Shackleton without any loss of life. The rescue of Shackleton’s men from Elephant Island was marked by the unveiling of the statue of Shackleton in Emily Square, Athy on the centenary of this event on the 31st of August 2016. With the approaching centenary of Shackleton’s death in January 2022 ‘Reach the World’ sees this as an opportunity to bring Shackleton’s life, adventures and his leadership into the classroom. They have also been inspired by the planned expedition to the Antarctic in February 2022 to locate the wreck of the ship Endurance. The leader of that expedition, ‘Endurance 2022’, Mensun Bound recently made a special trip to see the Shackleton artifacts in our local Museum. A native of the Falkland Islands, Mensun is one of the foremost Marine Archaeologist’s in the world. Among his many projects are the excavation of a 6th Century BC shipwreck near Tuscany and the discovery of the second world war German battleship, Graf Spee, in the River Plate in 1997. In this quest for Endurance he will lead an international team of marine experts, environmental scientist, and engineers who will employ the latest in marine technology to search for and hopefully locate the Endurance. The ‘Endurance 2022’ expedition will depart from South Africa in February of next year and will have a limited window of opportunity of no more than twelve days in the Antarctic’s Weddell Sea to find the Endurance. The environment in which they will be working will be incredibly challenging and they have no guarantee as to its likely success. Mensun himself believes that with the wealth of expertise on his team he is confident that they can find the ship. As part of the expedition they will be linking in with ‘Reach the World’ to talk to students about the Endurance, about Shackleton and also about the heroic age of exploration in the Antarctic. Discussions will include environmental issues in Antarctica and will hopefully open up debate and research into science, geography, history and politics in classrooms all over the world ‘Reach the World’ has created a dedicated web page to allow students to follow the expedition and will cover a variety of topics which are very relevant to today’s students such as social studies, geography, English, biology, maths, and technology. It is an interesting and innovative approach to exploration with the emphasis placed on engaging with educators and children. Colin Teague himself is seeking expressions of interest from primary and secondary schools in Athy and has invited any teachers who are interested in linking their classes into the project to contact him by email at colin@reachtheworld.org. Teachers can also register their class or schools at www.reachtheworld.org. It is hoped that the schools in Athy will become part of this very worthwhile project.