Age/Grade Categories:
- Emerging Elementary (Grades 3-6)
- Inquiring Juniors (Grades 7-8)*
- Exploring Intermediates (Grade 9-10)*
- Researching Seniors (Grades 11-12)*
*These Age/Grade Categories qualify for possible team selection to the Canada Wide Science Fair, May 23-31, 2026, in Edmonton, AB as representatives for the Okanagan Shuswap Region!
Types of Student Projects:
- Discovery: Projects that use the scientific method to answer a question through investigation and experimentation
- Innovation: Projects that solve practical problems through technological design and innovation
- Indigenous Science/Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Projects that showcase Indigenous/First Peoples local knowledge. This includes local perspectives and understanding of the connectedness of the natural world around them.
Youth Science Canada Project Categories:
- Aerospace: Projects that help advance atmospheric or space science, aviation or aerospace technologies, or enable humans to explore and live in space, on the Moon, or beyond.
- Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: Projects that help ensure food security, sustainability or competitiveness in agriculture, fisheries or food production.
- Curiosity and Ingenuity: Projects that help improve our understanding or address a problem in an area of STEM not covered by the other challenges.
- Digital Technology: Projects that help improve our quality of life or transform existing products and services through digital devices, methods or systems.
- Disease and Illness: Projects that help enhance our diagnosis, treatment or understanding of disease, or the management of physical or mental illness.
- Energy: Projects that help improve our use of current energy sources, enable the transition to alternative energy sources, or reduce our energy footprint.
- Environment and Climate Change: Projects that help ensure the quality of water, air, soil or the diversity of living things, or manage the impact of climate change.
- Health and Wellness: Projects that help prevent disease or promote physical, social, emotional, spiritual, environmental, occupational, or intellectual wellbeing.
- Natural Resources: Projects that help ensure the sustainable management, use, reuse or recycling of Earth’s finite or renewable natural resources.