This project promises to make a contribution to a newly developing area of science and values studies: interpretative studies of science-as-presented in public domains. The investigator will undertake an ethnographic study of the Bradbury Science Museum, located at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Los Alamos is a principal site in the history of nuclear science and weapons. The Bradbury Museum is charged with preserving that history, and furthering public understanding of how science figures in U.S. defense and energy policies. Traditional studies of science communication adopt positivist methods to "measure" visitor behavior, attitudes and learning. Alternately, this study uses participant-observation and informal interviewing to study the experiences and activities of Museum personnel and visitors as they interpret nuclear history. This data can contribute to revisionist theories of science and museum communication that emphasize the rhetorical dimensions of "texts," and the complex, active nature of science learners. It also provides insight into the cultural experience of nuclear history in the emerging, post-Cold War era. The Bradbury Museum is a site where multiple meanings for the institutions and legacies of nuclear science are promoted, accommodated, and challenged. This investigation occurs as the Museum is planning to relocate to a new, downtown Los Alamos site, which adds important historical as well as transitional dimensions to this research.
