Brainstorming the Future: Community Based Science Organization Front-end Evaluation Report

The focus of the November 9, 2006 Community Based Science Organization (CBSO) Roundtable was to gather participant's€™ ideas for future CBSO and the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) partnerships. These ideas were used to inform the development of a new program that would involve CBSOs and SMM. The goal was for participants to re-imagine the way SMM and CBSOs collaborate to facilitate better community-based science in Minnesota. Participants were asked to think about what this collaboration would look like. A brainstorming method was used, and to guide the brainstorming process, participants were asked to address six characteristics of a program: Program Goals, Activities & Products, Audience, Location, Partnership Roles, and Impact. Participants were divided into five groups for the brainstorming task, and responses were evaluated based on the number of groups proposing the same or similar ideas. Two themes came out strong across the six characteristics. Roundtable participants stressed the importance of public outreach activities and connections between CBSOs and with SMM.