Welcome! This page is under construction. Join us in gathering materials to help people host Barnraisings!

What's on this page?

• About a Barnraising event
  • Why host a Barnraising
• Event hosting resources
  • Pre-Barnraising event materials
  • Resources useful at the event
  • Printable materials

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About Barnraisings:

What makes a Public Lab Barnraising?

There are several important traits that all Public Lab events have. If you’re coming to an event for the first time, they are things you can expect to happen, and what makes a Public Lab event unique.

All Public Lab events:

• Follow the Public Lab Code of Conduct,
• Create learning moments,
• Level the playing field for people to participate,
• Increase collective understanding of environmental issues and community science,
• Allow space for people to think and act creatively, use available resources, and move towards action.

These are further explained at publiclab.org/events

A Public Lab Barnraisings is unique in that it also follows open space technology (read more here). The main principles behind Open Space Technology are that:

• Every person here is the right person,
• Whatever happens is the only thing that could have,
• Be prepared to be surprised,
• Whenever it starts is the right time, and
• The Law of Mobility Everyone or that is responsible for themselves and using their time to their best judgement.

Together, these guiding principles help to create the space for the unique and genuine collaboration that only Barnraisings have!

Why host a Barnraising?

Sharing a physical space with others can be extremely productive and rewarding. Barnraisings, in particular, help people to share and build knowledge with others. Barnraisigns have been known to help people:

• connect with others and build social bonds,
• dive into local issues,
• share a physical space to be creative, and
• work on projects, and bringing newcomers in.

Unlike other events like workshops or conferences, a unique aspect of the Barnraising is that it's a multiday event hosted in an unconference style. While we all come to the space with our own ideas and interests on what we would like to do, we actually set the schedule together. This means that everyone who is there is part of the process of deciding what happens with the shared time and space.

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Barnraising Hosting Resources:

• Pre-Barnraising event materials
  • Logistics and planning
  • Day before and night before activities
• Resources useful at the Barnraising event
  • Documentation
  • Committees
• Printable materials

Pre-Barnraising event materials:

Activities for preparation and logistics

Activities for the day before a barnraising

Activities for the night before a barnraising

the image below shows what a great Welcome/Registration table looks like: alphabetized namebadges, stickers for customizing name badges, waivers to sign, pens to sign with, copies of the Code of Conduct, and free Public Lab stuff that people can take if they like:

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Resources useful at the event

Activities during a barnraising

Family and Fun activity ideas

When making family friendly events, you need to make sure there are good activities for people of all ages. Having a couple sessions that focus specifically hands-on, youth friendly activities is really helpful! See some options for activities below.

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Printable resources

• Gender-neutral restroom signs: restrooms.pdf
• Code of Conduct

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Join the brainstorming here: