Judging FAQ

If you would like to judge at our 2023 CYSF, please email judging@cysf.org with your interest in the in-person and/or virtual fair.

If you wish to be a judge at the CYSF, you must:

1. Be at least 19 years old or attending a post-secondary institution
2. have a love of science
3. be available for the first round of judging (April 21 morning).  Some judges will also be asked to be available for the second round (April 22 afternoon).

Space permitting, all people are accepted as judges unless you are contacted otherwise. You should get an e-mail confirming your registration immediately after registering.

Elementary projects are done by students in grades five and six. Most of these students have competed at a school fair and have won their place to attend the Calgary Youth Science Fair. Secondary projects are from students in grades seven to twelve and have projects that are generally more advanced than those in elementary.

We like to recommend you start at the elementary level for at least one year. Elementary projects are generally not as involved as those at the secondary level and don’t require in depth knowledge of a subject. Judges at the secondary level must have adequate knowledge of a subject so that they can ask more complex questions about project results.

In the interest of public health, we will not be hosting judging seminars, but we will post webinar videos at a later date closer to the fair.  These videos will help judges become more familiar with our fair, the scientific method, 2023 judging procedures and how to communicate with our young scientists.  We will thoroughly review the judging process and present examples of past projects’ assessments.

Please contact us to let us know of your interest in judging for future years and we will add you to our data base.

We can’t accommodate requests to judge with your friends or colleagues. When we build the judging teams, we like to put experienced judges with less experienced or new judges. This gives us more consistent results and allows new judges to learn from past experience of the other judges.

We’ll be publishing the results online after each round of judging has been completed.

Check out our Get Involved page.

In the past there have been almost 1000 students (over 600 projects) that have participated in the fair each year.

Check out our list of Last Year’s Award Winners

You can still judge as there are many students at the fair.  We recommend that you sign up for the other level from where your child is participating (e.g. if your child is in elementary, please sign up for secondary).  There is a conflict of interest box on the judge’s registration form that you should check if you are in this situation.

The judging handbook is available online here

Click here see who our sponsors are.

Click to our Support section for more information.

Please contact us as soon as possible to let us know you can’t attend the fair. Our teams are made up just prior to the fair so as long as you give us sufficient warning it does not cause any major problems. If you had every intention of coming but for some unforeseen reason have to cancel the morning of fair day you must call the number given to you in prior mailings.

Please reach out to the students directly via the MSG PROJECT button.  Students have been instructed to actively monitor this mailbox during the medal round judging period, so any failure to answer should be treated as such.

Please reach out to the students directly via the MSG PROJECT button.  Certain schools may have instructed students to keep these files private until a judge specifically requests access.

If your screen resolution is smaller, the toolbar may be hidden. The button on the top left with three lines should open it back up, and your projects are under CYSF Medal Round.

Please reach out to judging@cysf.org directly and we can add more onto your plate!  Much obliged 🙂

Judging will occur entirely on 21 April, but students’ digital project submissions will be submitted by 31 March, which will allow you to virtually preview students’ projects prior to judging.