Does your science fair project involve humans or animals?

Take the quiz to determine whether your project requires the completion of ethics forms, and if so, which forms you require.

Take the Ethics quiz

Ethics approval is not required in the following cases:

experiments involving invertebrates (e.g. mealworms, earthworms, waxworms, silkworms, fruit flies) or single-celled micro-organisms (e.g. diatoms)
observations of subjects in a public place without identifying them (e.g. counting pedestrians at an intersection)
testing personal care products on synthetic samples (e.g. testing shampoo on synthetic hair or yarn)
using data from an open database (just requires proper citation)

After taking the ethics quiz, determine if you need ethics approval in order to qualify for GVRSF. If so, please follow the instructions below:

Use the ethics quiz above to find out whether your project involves humans (low risk vs. significant risk) or animals.
Download the ethics package, which contains all the forms that need to be completed.

Human Studies – Low Risk

Package Contents	Considerations
Request for Ruling	Describe your project and include your abstract.
Low Risk Approval Form	Will need to be signed by yourself and the adult supervisor.
Letter of Information	Informs the participant about the nature of the study so that they can provide informed consent. Completed prior to the study starting.
Permission Form	Provide a blank template, which is what participants sign prior to the study.
Survey	If a survey was performed, attach the survey to the application

Human Studies – Significant Risk

Package Contents	Considerations
Request for Ruling	Describe your project and include your abstract.
Significant Risk Approval Form	Will need to be signed by yourself and the adult supervisor and scientific supervisor.
Letter of Information	Informs the participant about the nature of the study so that they can provide informed consent. Completed prior to the study starting.
Permission Form	Provide a blank template, which is what participants sign prior to the study.
Survey	If a survey was performed, attach the survey to the application

Vertebrate Animal Studies

Package Contents	Considerations
Request for Ruling	Describe your project and include your abstract.
Vertebrate Research Approval Form	Will need to be signed by yourself and the adult supervisor and scientific supervisor (for advanced animal studies)
Animal Research Plan	Provides an overview on how you have incorporated the 3R’s of animal research – Replacement, Reduction, Refinement and your research proposal.

Projects involving vertebrate animals, cephalopods, or decapod crustaceans require pre-approval from the GVRSF ethics reviewer before any experiments may begin.

E-mail your request to the GVRSF Ethics Committee (ethics@gvrsf.ca) and include your project partner, and your teacher supervisor. IMPORTANT! Please include everyone on all e-mails related to ethics approval. This allows everyone to stay in the loop.
Check your e-mail regularly for updates on the status of your ethics approval request. Once approved, insert a screenshot of this e-mail and your completed ethics approval forms into your project.

Tips for Submitting to Ethics Committee

WANT TO AVOID DELAYS?

Send one e-mail with the package fully completed, and any additional items such as surveys.

Research Ethics – Why Do We Need It?

Ethics is a branch of philosophy that deals with right and wrong and the development of guidelines that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Scientists who carry out research projects involving humans or animals spend a lot of time thinking not only about the scientific content of their work, but also about the potential impact on the health, privacy, and dignity of the subjects participating in their studies.

All projects at the Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair (GVRSF) must meet the Youth Science Canada ethics policies, which also apply to projects at the national Canada-Wide Science Fair. We encourage students and teachers to become familiar with these guidelines – not only to avoid disqualification and disappointment, but also to understand the basic principles of research ethics.

Ethics Policies

Youth Science Canada (YSC) has developed ethics policies that apply to science fair projects completed by all elementary and high school students in Canada. You must follow these guidelines in order to qualify for participation in the GVRSF.

Complete guidelines regarding the use of humans and animals in student research projects as follows:

Resources

If you have questions, require an ethics committee review of a Research Plan, or require an ethics committee signature on Form 4.1A or 4.1B, please download this form and email it to our ethics team

We are happy to provide advice during a project’s development and hope we can work with you to ensure that our fair is adherent to Youth Science Canada’s ethics policies.

Credits: The GVRSF would like to acknowledge Ms. Chan from the VDSF for compiling the aforementioned instructions. Links and instructions have been amended to be relevant to GVRSF.

Last updated: October 15, 2023