Students from the American School of Doha’s (ASD) Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) programme presented at Texas A&M University Qatar for the second annual GATE-D Talks, created by Anita Churchville, ASD High School Learning Support and GATE Coordinator.
This is in collaboration with Dr Adrian James, Program Coordinator for Tutorial Services Academic Success Center, Texas A&M University Qatar, who has been instrumental in being a liaison between ASD and Texas A & M.
For the GATE-D Talks, 12 ASD GATE students chose a topic or an issue that was of personal interest to him or her, or about which they were passionate. Some students decided to work in teams of 2 or 3, while others worked alone. Mentors for the GATE Plus Program (past participants) mentored them through the research process and honing of the topic. Dr Adrian James also came to meet with the students at the start of their project to discuss academic research. The goal was to identify an issue (global or local) and come up with creative solutions to solve the issue/problem. The topics presented were as follows: Video games as a solution to social anxiety, Drone technology, Gender slotting, Limitations of North Korea media, Using solar agriculture to mitigate the effects of global warming, Solving Infrastructure issue in Russia for World Cup 2018 and Girls’ education in rural India.
Each talk was between 4 and 10 minutes long, in TED-Talk style presentations. Several parents, teachers and students from ASD, including staff and faculty from Texas A & M were in attendance.
The audience included Dr Deborah Welch, ASD Director, who was extremely impressed with the topics chosen as well as the eloquent execution of each presentation. Dr Welch stated: “The range of topics was fascinating and included scientific, political, sociological and psychological subjects. The important point was that the students were passionate about the topic they selected, conducted research about a problem linked to the subject and then posed an innovative solution. This is exactly the kind of problem solving that they will need (and society needs) in the workplace to solve problems in the future.”
The team of students included: Aaya Aboulnaga, Raghav Acharya, Soomin Chung, Vandana Dronadula, Spencer Francis, Ashley Hammonds, Julie Jung, Niall Kelly, Charlotte Lombard, Akash Nivarthi, Adithi Sanjay and Isaac Whiteley. The Peninsula
