About Us

Our organization began under a simple motivation: to spread our love of science. This path started in 2017 at Paul Kane High School when our founding board members created the school club called "PK People of Science." The founding members individually loved science and found each other under that pretense of their passions. They met after school and at lunch hour to debate their ideas on scientific theories, share ideas about exciting ways to solve scientific problems, and dream of ways to spread our love of science with fellow students.

The club was a place where students and teachers alike could come together and express their passion for science through discussions and collaboration. It was an exciting place for the school community to discuss what they learned in science classes, their own personal interests and ideas, and for students to have a place where all were welcome and celebrated.

Our club, and now organization, had and has a strong dedication towards encouraging, celebrating, and inspiring women in STEM. We hosted Science career days which advertised and highlighted the many diverse careers within the sciences, and within each career booth, we provided examples of women in history and in the present day that made inspirational advancements within these careers.

Our organization was founded on the belief that scientific passion is sparked through curiosity. We wished to create a substantial event within our school community that could act as an inspirational match for the intrigue in science, but also be a motivational moment that indicated that with dedication and a belief in yourself, your goals can be achieved. So, in 2019 we organized Dr. Robert Thirsk, a Canadian astronaut, to come and speak to our fellow student body.

A large value of our club, and now organization, is sustainable technology. Which became conceptualized when it was announced that a new building for Paul Kane High School was going to be built. Although the founding members of the club would be graduated by the time the new school would be built, they wanted to ensure their sustainable values were considered for the upcoming construction plans. A key accomplishment for People Of Science was advocating for solar panels to be included in the new building, and this becoming a reality within the new school.

In 2020, the founding members of the club were coming to a close in their senior year and did not want to give up on their mission to share their love for science with others. This led to the founding members creating the “People Of Science” organization. Just as this organization was starting up, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic was starting to close schools. So, our first initiative was to try and facilitate scientific learning that the kids in our community would now need to be doing from home. We created our website and began posting videos that explained concepts in the Alberta science curriculum from grade K-9 through fun and experiment central videos. Our hope was to still inspire scientific learning despite having to do so from home during the pandemic.

From there, this organization has evolved to act as a hub for scientific passion, curiosity, and inspiration. Our team keeps an eye on current scientific literature and posts a summary of new and interesting findings. The blogs act to inspire young minds about the new and exciting avenues of science, and also to act as a bridge between our community and the scientific literature. We also sustained our dedication to celebrating and encouraging women in STEM by posting highlights of the findings and accomplishments of inspiring women in STEM and hosting science career information sessions. 

Today, People Of Science holds true to its initial mission when it was a small club in a high school classroom: to share our passion for science with others.