Social science and leadership programs

JA Southern Alberta's flagship program: a student-led, mentor-supported team builds and runs a real company over 20 weeks, covering market research, financial planning, sales and a year-end tradeshow. Participants also get executive and sales training plus events like World of Choices. Runs in class or as an after-school activity at multiple Calgary locations.

Financial literacy, entrepreneurship and work readiness programming for northern Alberta students, including the after-school Company Program where a student team builds and runs a real business. Delivered in partnership with schools; self-directed options are also available.

The provincial association for school-based speech and debate in Alberta, running junior and senior tournaments in English and French across Language Arts, Drama, Social Studies and Science. Builds research, argument construction and public speaking skills, and sends qualifiers to national and international competitions. Students take part through a club at their school.

The largest youth startup accelerator in Canada, a national charity founded by Hootsuite founder Ryan Holmes. Launch It is a free self-paced course for getting an idea off the ground. Labs is the flagship 12-week virtual accelerator, with workshops, mentors, AMA sessions and a cohort of other young founders. Boost is a 12-month program for founders further along. All three are free and take no equity, and the deposits are returned on completion. Applications for the fall 2026 Labs cohort opened in July 2026.

Heritage Fairs and Young Citizens are no longer listed by Historica Canada. They appear on neither the current nor the past programs page, and /heritagefairs returns a 404. Historica now runs the Citizenship Challenge, Heritage Minutes and The Memory Project.

Rigorous global entrepreneurship program where high schoolers form teams to conduct deep market research, prototype a digital or physical tech product, and pitch a fully functioning startup to a panel of investors. MIT-affiliated curriculum.

Applications for Forum 2027 open soon, for sessions running February 7-12, February 28 - March 5, and April 18-23, 2027. Three hundred students aged 15-18 spend a week in Ottawa meeting MPs and Senators; travel, meals and accommodation are covered, with bursaries against the $995 fee.

A funded reciprocal exchange that twins a group of Alberta youth with a group from another province or territory, each hosting the other for at least five days. Groups plan their own travel, budget, itinerary and community project. Applications are made by a group leader, so you need a teacher or community organizer to run it.

National geography competition and Canada's route to the International Geography Olympiad. Levels 1 and 2 run through classroom and school rounds. Level 3 is the senior stream: a multimedia test open to everyone who signs up, narrowing to the top 20 for a written test, the top 10 for a fieldwork test, then six interviews and four Team Canada spots. Free to join, and a guardian can supervise if your school does not take part.

The longest standing Model UN conference for high school students in Alberta, run by the UCalgary political science department. Delegates represent countries across UN and NATO committees for two days, researching a national position, negotiating with blocs and drafting resolutions under formal debate rules. Good preparation for political science, law and international relations programs. The registration link goes live once the department announces the next conference date, so check the page in the fall.

The Alberta Youth Parliament website is currently down. abyp.ca shows only an "under construction" placeholder, with no session dates or application details posted. TUXIS Parliament has historically run a winter sitting for youth delegates.

Apply through your local Rotary club. Selection is run by clubs, not centrally, so ask yours about timing. Since 1951 the program has brought 150+ students aged 16-18 to Ottawa for four days of meetings with parliamentarians, plus access to three $1,000 scholarships.

A fully funded, bilingual parliamentary simulation on Parliament Hill run by CIVIX, the civic education charity behind Student Vote. Delegates take part in legislative debate, committee work and question period. The inaugural session ran November 6 to 10, 2025 with 75 delegates, the first youth parliament on the Hill in more than four decades. CIVIX had not announced a second session as of August 2026, so email youthparliament@civix.ca before counting on it. This is a new program and is unrelated to the 1980s parliament of the same name, which no longer runs.

Register through the Community Futures office in your area. YETI is a summer business-training program for senior high school students in the Capital Region: you launch a real business over the summer with startup funding and mentorship, and may earn high school credit.

The provincial student leadership conference, run since 1988 by a volunteer association of student council advisors and hosted by a different Alberta school every year. Three days of keynote speakers, around 14 breakout sessions, a service project and a dance, built around meeting student leaders from across the province. Useful for building a community leadership record rather than a competitive one. ASLC 2026 ran May 1 to 3 at École Olds High School; the 2027 host had not been announced as of August 2026. Ask your student council advisor to enter a delegation.

Forty students are chosen from across Canada each year to work on the floor of the House of Commons while doing their first year of university in Ottawa. Pages carry documents and messages during sittings, work directly around Members of Parliament and see federal legislation as it happens, which is experience almost nothing else at that age can match. Recruitment runs on a long cycle: applications for the 2027 to 2028 cohort open in September 2026 and close in November 2026, selections finish in March 2027 and offers go out at the end of April 2027. You apply in your Grade 12 year, so the timing lines up with university applications.

An official civic agency, not a simulation. Members research and write policy proposals that go to City Council, run events on local youth issues and advise on decisions that affect young Edmontonians, which makes it verifiable government experience rather than a mock exercise. Meetings are open to the public if you want to sit in before applying. Other Alberta municipalities run comparable youth councils or advisory committees, so if you are outside Edmonton, check your own city or town's civic agency listings for the local equivalent.

A fully funded week in Belgium and France studying Canada's role in the First World War on the ground, visiting battlefields, cemeteries and museums with a national cohort of students. It rewards community service and historical interest rather than marks, and it carries real weight on a scholarship application later. The 2026 journey ran April 3 to 11 and its application window was October 21 to November 25, 2025. The next cycle had not been posted as of August 2026, so watch the page from mid-October.