Qatar Leadership Academy and M.E.S. Indian won the contest.

Within the celebration activities of the 2016 Qatar National Environment Day, the Qur’anic Botanic Garden (QBG), member of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, concluded its Environment Fair and Environmental Research Contest for secondary school students that was held in the Student Center, Hamad bin Khalifa University in the Education City. The Awarding and Closing Ceremony was attended by all schools under Qatar Foundation’s umbrella, and a number of various independent and private schools in the State of Qatar.

QBG organizes the Environmental Research Contest in celebration of the 2016 Qatar National Environment Day and within the framework of its Education and Conservation program, which seeks to protect the flora and the environment. The QBG launches the Environmental Research Contest, which revolves around two environmental issues of concern to all members of society, namely “Water Management” and “Conservation of Wild Flora”. Using the productive and systematic research method undertaken by secondary school students in Qatar, the competition aims to find innovative solutions to these challenges.
As a part of it community partnership, the Qur’anic Botanic Garden collaborated with the relevant local authorities. QBG set up a selection of judging panel composed of members of the Ministry of Education, Qatari National Committee for Education, Heritage & Science, the Ministry of Municipality and Environment, Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa), and the Friends of the Environment Center to determine the guidelines of the research competition and to provide a reference guide to students.

Ms. Fatima Saleh Al-Khulaifi, Project Manager of the Qur’anic Botanic Garden said; “QBG hopes that the candidates submit research projects and ideas to tackle the environmental issues related to water management and flora conservation. We trust that the research papers, the ideas and the projects presented by our students will break new grounds in areas of science and knowledge, hoping to provide to the decision makers concerned with the protection of natural resources with ideas and solutions to help them solve today’s environmental problems.”

Al-Khulaifi also said, “Finding innovative solutions and alternatives to the diverse environmental problems we face is one of the most important concerns of the Qur’anic Botanic Garden, as the environment issue is actually raised in several Qur’anic verses, and Shari’a Law urges economy in the use of resources and reprimands extravagance. Hence, QBG focuses on the concept of ecological balance and the optimal and fair use of resources”.

To reach to that awarding day, the QBG delivered a series of educational workshops about the two environment issues: water management and conservation of wild flora, to all the students participating in the contest. Following this, schools presented their research abstracts, full research and documentaries.
On the honoring day, all the competing teams exhibited the scoreboard in front of the audience, where judges panel announced the first place winner on both categories “water management research” and “research on conservation of wild plants”.

Qatar Academy, a member of Qatar Foundation for education, science and community development, has won first-place for the research topic “water management” under the heading “effective management of wastewater “car wash water” in Qatar” prepared by both students Mohammed Abdelrahman Al-Khulaifi and Yousuf Khalifa Al-Bader.
On this occasion His Excellency Brigadier General Ali Ahmed Omran Al-kawari, Director General of Qatar Leadership Academy: “we are confident in the abilities of our students at the Academy, and we also commend the Qur’anic Botanic, member Qatar Foundation, for organizing such competitions, which have a great positive impact on raising the research capacity of students and urged them look forward to achieve the Foundation’s vision. We will stimulate our students to keep going in order to maintain the first-place in next year’s contest”.

For the first-place research of the “Conservation of wild flora in Qatar” it was won by M.E.S. Indian School in Qatar on research under the title “Significance of Coastal Mangroves in Qatar”.
Dr Haroon Khan, the “Principal of M.E.S. Indian School in Qatar”, expressed his delight following his win with the first place in the contest organized by QBG, and he said “I thank the Qur’anic Botanic Garden for this honor, and I will strive to apply the research done by our students to preserve our natural resources for future generations”.

At the end of the day, Ms. Fatima Al-Khulaifi, Project Manager of QBG, invited all attendees to visit the exhibition of students researches and the Environment Fair organized by the Garden in collaboration with local authorities and departments working in the field of environmental conservation.

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