Qatar Shell has held a virtual ceremony to celebrate the completion of its second cycle of the NXplorers programme.
The Shell NXplorers programme is currently running in a number of schools in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education Qatar, and Qatar Scientific Club.
The ceremony was a celebration and recognition of the Shell NXplorers programme with the aim to inspire talented young people to be the problem-solvers of today and leaders of tomorrow, a press statement noted. The NXplorers contest received over 20 nominations from Grade 9 students, from which three winning teams were selected based on the challenges presented, solution ideas and the application of their NXplorers thinking tools.
The celebration included global Shell NXplorers team, representatives from local entities and Qatar Shell STEM ambassadors.
Mostafa Mostafa, Diyora Berdiyorova and Minaa Zafar - Team 'Unknown' from Michael E Debakey School - won the Bronze awards for “How can we create energy while cleaning the ocean from waste?”.
Khalid Fahad, Hamad Rashid and Hamad Hassan - Team 'Alpha Omega' from Qatar Science & Technology School for Boys - won the Silver awards for “How to make farming more efficient”.
Salman al-Dosari, Hamad al-Marri, Abdulaziz al-Obaidli and Hassan al-Mutawa – Team 'Elite' from Qatar Leadership Academy - won the Gold awards for “How can we use less fuel in water filtration process?”.
This year, 155 Grade 9 students participated in the NXplorers workshops across Qatar. NXplorers training from the UK was provided to 29 teachers, eight representatives from the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, and six Qatar Scientific Club members. It resulted in a 35 creative ideas being proposed by the students, with 30 projects successfully uploaded on the NXplorers Collaboration Space.
The NXplorers Collaboration Space is a platform for students participating in the programme from over 17 countries to share their challenges, connect with other teams and share progress on their solutions.
"The NXplorers programme gave our students a fantastic way to create real, meaningful solutions to some of the most serious global issues we face today, such as ways to enhance the quality of soil for better food production and test possibilities around using less fuel in the water filtration process. Students experimented with different tools to evaluate and develop their ideas and were able to experience a sense of ownership in solving the problems of the future. We will be incorporating some of the experiences we gained through this in developing our students’ ability to reason, articulate and solve the challenges they face,” said Ragee Tarabi, teacher at Qatar Science & Technology Secondary School for Boys.
NXplorers workshops introduce concepts such as complexity and NXthinking, which help students explore real-world issues related to water, food and energy. In addition, the students were empowered with tools used to analyse their chosen issue, explore future scenarios and brainstorm solutions to help tackle these challenges.
“NXplorers improved our communication, speaking and presentation skills and our passion for teamwork. It also taught us the steps of creating a project; it was a fun, new experience. We had a lot of activities that I enjoyed and had support from such friendly staff,” said Ahmad Essa al-Nassr, student at Qatar Science & Technology Secondary School for Boys.
NXplorers encourages students to appreciate the strong partnership between the educational institutions and industry, and links the students with exceptional peer leaders, instructors and industry experts who provide positive role models for STEM.
