(MENAFN- The Peninsula) The Peninsula
Doha: Texas A&M University at Qatar, in collaboration with Qatar Cool, hosted a workshop on district cooling for high school students.
Over the past academic year, 20 high school students from different schools in Qatar explored the engineering behind district cooling by participating in a programme hosted by Texas A&M University at Qatar, a Qatar Foundation partner university, in collaboration with Qatar Cool.
During the programme, Keeping Cool with Qatar Cool, students gained insights on various topics including the physics behind pumps, heat transfer and heat exchangers, water and energy conservation, thermodynamics, refrigeration, water purification, and reverse osmosis. During each lesson, they worked on hands-on projects such as building water fountains, making swamp coolers, creating hydroponics systems, studying refrigeration components, and creating water filtration and purification systems with an economic analysis for their designs.
The students also visited the Qatar Cool plant, which helped the participants understand how district cooling works and the engineering behind it. They researched solutions to clean or re-use the refrigerant gas within Qatar Cool plants or develop a more environmentally friendly method to discharge the gas into the atmosphere, as part of their final project.
Karima Ahmed, a student at ACS International School Doha who aspire to be an engineer said:“This program gives the best real-life experience in engineering. If you are unsure that engineering is the path for you then this course shows you what engineering is and how it looks like in real life.” Hasan Zubeidi, a student in Qatar Academy Doha, said:“I'd personally describe my journey with the 'Keeping Cool with Qatar Cool' programme as extremely inspiring and informative, as well as fun.”
The programme was developed by TAMUQ's STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Hub to give students a firsthand look at how district cooling works in Qatar from the industry experts. STEM experts Tala Katbeh '15 and Benjamin Cieslinski led the programme with input and some lessons from Qatar Cool.
Katbeh said the programme is unique:“It was exciting to see how the students were actively engaged in the learning process. As an educator, I feel very proud to have been able to contribute towards preparing the next generation of future engineering leaders in Qatar.”
Qatar Cool CEO, Yasser Al Jaidah said:“Innovation and scientific advances are rapidly expanding, creating a demand for innovators. It is our next generation who will lead the way and build a knowledge-based economy. To succeed in this new information-based and highly technical culture, students need to expand their skills in STEM to levels beyond what was deemed acceptable in the past.”
He continued:“STEM education creates critical thinkers and enables the next generation of innovators. We are pleased to have been involved with Texas A&M in this program. As an organisation rich with engineers from all disciplines, we know the worth of STEM education and the invaluable role our future engineers will have in sustaining and enhancing the efforts we are putting in place. We look forward to continuing to work with institutes and students, helping to nurture and develop our future engineers.”
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