From CAMAO’s blog: Free access to knowledge for the youngest – The Natural History Museum in Plovdiv

In the heart of one of the most ancient cities in the world, right next to the oldest park in Bulgaria is the location of the Regional Natural History Museum – Plovdiv. Together with the museum’s team of experts, we provide courses in astronomy for children, welcoming the curiosity of the youngest target group.

THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM IN PLOVDIV

Known as the second largest city in Bulgaria with a history of more than 2 000 years, this year Plovdiv is the European capital of culture. The city offers its residents and visiting tourists beautiful landscape and unique architecture. Among the landmarks in Plovdiv is the Natural History Museum in the city: its building was constructed in 1880 and for many years it was used as the mayor’s offices administrative building. Since 1957 and up to the present it has been the home of the museum – a point of intersection of subjects like biology, astronomy and geology, which are of interest for people from all age groups.

Throughout the last few years, the museum has seen positive development in terms of management and infrastructure and the museum director Ognyan Todorov and his team have always paid special attention to children.  Work in this direction is unthinkable without digitalization. Thus the subjects we are competent on and can be useful with are two: enhancing the scope of communication and applying digital devices.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Besides our activity as consultants of the Natural History Museum, together with its team we made the first even more visible step in outward communication:  I provide once a week the visit of a total of 22 pupils from the 5-th and 6-th grade, which takes them into the world of the planets and stars. Thus, we are directing the institution’s focus even more expressly on the growing young children and their parents. The museum in its turn is a kind of platform for promoting our office in Sofia. For that purpose, we developed communication measures and specially designed printed materials.

Looking ahead, this will mean joint activities in the direction of communication strategies and preparing the museum for the future: we imagine digitalization of the information offered, interactive lectures and activities for the visitors, tours of the displayed exhibits and of the halls. 

Think Big:  The Regional Natural History Museum in Plovdiv as an attractive location not only in the region but for tourists from other countries as well – both young and adults.

This article has been drawn up in cooperation with the Agency for New Communication CAMAO.