Course Descriptions

This course uses guest speakers, videos and field trips to provide students with an orientation to a career as an applied scientist with a focus on life sciences, clean technology and data science.

Science is both a body of knowledge and a process of gathering knowledge. As a discipline, there have been key paradigm shifts throughout its history. Scientists triggering the shifts are considered revolutionaries because their ideas changed not only the course and progress of science but also the way humans see and understand the workings of the world's natural systems. Revolutions in scientific thought have fundamentally transformed society's view of the dynamic relationship between nature and humanity.

Working in multidisciplinary teams, students complete a scientific research project on a topic they select from a set of approved available options. Weekly seminar meetings address each stage of the research process and involve faculty lead discussions, student presentations and opportunities for teams to receive peer feedback and guidance from faculty advisors.

An introduction to the study of sound and light from a scientific perspective. This course examines the properties of waves, which apply to both sound and light, as well as topics specific to each of the two fields. For sound, these will include hearing, pitch and timbre, resonance, music and musical instruments, the human voice, acoustics, noise, and the human ear. For light, topics will include colour, reflection and refraction, optical instruments, images, and the human eye.