MELDING RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN THE PERSIAN GULF REGION

Abstract

The College of the North Atlantic-Qatar (CNA-Q) is a satellite campus of a Canadian comprehensive technical college based in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. CNA-Q is beginning its ninth year this September with over 2000 students and 400 faculty.In 2008, we began the first phase of a research programme that had two main objectives: interdisciplinary learning and student driven projects. With these two objectives as our central theme, we received a grant to design a prototype of an autonomous environmental research robot (ERR). The idea behind the ERR was to have students search out environmental issues and then work as a team to see how robots could be used to help. Their first 'mission' involves the endangered Hawksbill Turtle which is indigenous to the Gulf region. The hawksbill turtle is at risk for many reasons including: that turtle meat and turtle eggs are considered a delicacy, natural predators and our concern, that the nesting beaches have been contaminated. In Qatar, the female hawksbill turtle lays her eggs on the beaches of one of the largest industrial cities in the world, Ras Laffan, where Qatar's natural gas is processed.Using Mindstorm robotic kits, students from Engineering, IT, Business and Health Sciences built over 100 robots looking for the best-designed and programmed robot, capable of withstanding the harsh environment as well as being sophisticated enough to collect and store data at given intervals. To ensure that the students had the background necessary to understand the turtle's plight, they spent a week in Malaysia working with Dr. Nicholas Pilcher, founder of the Marine research foundation, Sabah including a stay at Borneo's Turtle Island. In addition, this spring the students were present at Fuwayrit beach, Qatar when three turtles layed their eggs. CNA-Q adopted one of the turtles, "Q", outfitting her with a satellite tracking device supplying the students with additional statistics and knowledge which will be incorporated into their final research paper.Phase II, beginning in the fall of 2010, will be building the actual robot equipped with sensors and solar panels and deploying it onto the beach to begin its data collection. This paper will discuss the innovative teaching and learning practices that resulted from the melding of the research, technology and environmental aspects of this project.