A vast array of fruit and vegetables have been grown by children learning about health, nutrition, science and sustainability.
The students took part in Project Greenhouse, an initiative from Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar’s (WCM-Q) Sahtak Awalan – Your Health First campaign to teach children about their food and the types of food they should be eating to stay healthy and avoid diabetes and obesity. 
Each year, 101 schools that have received a greenhouse from Your Health First compete to see who has the best harvest.
Qatar Leadership Academy (QLA), member of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development in Al Khor, won the first prize by producing a bumper harvest and incorporating the greenhouses into a multitude of different lessons and community projects. 
Umm Salal Ali Model Independent School for Boys came second, while Omar Ibn El Khatab Educational Centre finished third.
Ali Jassim al-Kuwari, head of the Adult Education Section at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, presented the trophy for first place.
He said, “Project Greenhouse is a wonderful programme for so many reasons and has proved a great success over the past five years. Firstly, it offers students the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities and learn lessons that are not always included in the mainstream curriculum; focusing on extra-curricular activities has proven to have great benefits for 
children’s education.”
Brigadier General Ali Ahmad al-Kuwari, director, QLA, said having the greenhouses allowed the students to put theoretical lessons in the classroom into practice in the real world. “Project Greenhouse has been a great success and by planting seeds, nurturing plants and harvesting and eating the crop it has given our cadets a very real sense of achievement.” 
Fruit and vegetables grown by students at QLA include lettuce, parsley, tomatoes, chilli, eggplants and cilantro. They have also introduced mango trees and okra and built an irrigation system to make watering the plants easier. 
The next stage, said Sunny Joseph, science and technical co-ordinator at the school, is for solar panels to be installed. Joseph said it was hoped to connect these to fans, which would allow the school to extend the growing season through the summer.
Nesreen al-Rifai, chief communications officer at WCM-Q, praised the children and teachers of participating schools for their hard work.