Discover: the first-year program of Future Science Leaders
Future Science Leaders can be a multi-year program. All prospective students apply to the first-year program called Discover.
Each week of Discover, you will participate in innovative learning and skill-building activities in a wide variety of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts & design, and math) topics led by diverse experts and professionals. The topics covered each week will vary depending on the expert leading the session; some examples include disease modelling with a mathematician, PCR analysis with a geneticist, and machine learning with a quantum physicist. You will learn about career paths into STEAM, create a life-long network of peers, and unleash your creative potential in a supportive environment.
In Discover, you will develop a foundation in these advanced skills useful for university STEAM classes and careers:
- Keeping records in a lab notebook
- Researching reliable information
- Presenting data in a meaningful manner
- Writing proposals and designing experiments
- Visually and verbally communicating experiments through scientific posters
- Reading a scientific journal article efficiently
- Communicating scientific ideas to the public through blogging. Please check out our students’ work.
After Discover, students can apply to Innovate, the second-year program.
Innovate: the second-year program of Future Science Leaders.
After completing Discover, students can apply to Innovate, our second-year program that focuses on skill-building in either applied science or life science. In Innovate, students learn advanced laboratory techniques and develop and carry out a major 10-week project that is written up as a scientific paper.
More information about Innovate is available upon acceptance into Discover.
Where and when does Future Science Leader's first-year Discover program happen?
Students entering the first-year Discover program of Future Science Leaders will choose from one of the following cohorts:
- Tuesdays, 4pm–6pm at Science World, Vancouver
- Tuesdays, 6:30pm–8:30pm at Science World, Vancouver
- Thursdays, 4:30pm–6:30pm at Science World, Vancouver
Please Note: We are not currently running a program in Surrey.
The Discover program runs from September to May.
Who can apply?
Candidates for Future Science Leaders are:
- Curious, up for a challenge, and willing to take risks
- Open-minded, collaborative, compassionate, and creative
- Entering into grade 10 or 11 in September of their program year.
Please contact us if you have questions about your eligibility.
What is the cost?
The cost of the program is $600 plus tax. Needs-based scholarships are available to cover up to 90% of program fees. We will work with families to ensure that financial circumstances won't prevent an applicant from attending the FSL program.
What are alumni saying?
“I loved FSL because of the opportunities I gained and the people I met. Every week was new, exciting, and definitely something to look forward to. Coming in to sessions was often the highlight of my week.”—Megan Nantel, FSL Discover 2011
“We will never know the ultimate, perfect truth because that doesn’t really exist. It’s the process that matters most. I learned that in Future Science Leaders.”—Nicole Rzhemovskiy, FSL Discover 2015
“I can say 100% I would not be doing this job right now which I really love (research engineer at VGH) without FSL. The network and support continue when you leave the program.”—Edward Wang, FSL Discover 2012
"FSL is a transformative experience where I learned invaluable advanced STEAM skills, gained teamwork and leadership experience, and created personal projects under talented mentors. FSL helped jumpstart my passion for engineering, which led me to start my engineering club at school, develop a machine learning algorithm that helps detect skin cancer, and ultimately achieve a $100,000 scholarship.” —Xavier Lam, FSL 2021, Schulich Leader Scholarship Recipient 2021
Find more stories about our alumni at the bottom of this page.
