Speaker
Description
The Musée Curie in Paris, housed in the historic premises of the Institut du Radium, is a significant European site for the history of physics and for the public understanding of science. This contribution offers an insider perspective on the museum’s science communication activities, grounded in a six-month visiting experience that provided direct access to its daily workings, its staff, and the design processes behind its outreach initiatives.
This privileged vantage point makes it possible to go beyond a merely descriptive account and to reflect on how communicative choices are conceived, shaped, and implemented from within. The museum’s outreach programme is rich and varied: it includes a hands-on radioactivity workshop — which the author both attended and evaluated through purpose-designed questionnaires administered to participants — a blog, a graphic novel on the méthode Curie, documentary films and videos, interactive booklets for young visitors structured around games and quizzes, and theatrical performances inspired by Marie Curie’s life and science.
By combining this firsthand experience with an analytical lens, the contribution aims to reflect on the role of history-of-science museums as active agents of scientific culture, and to discuss how historical narratives can be translated into engaging and pedagogically effective public experiences.
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