AAMC Electrical Engineering Students Put Theory Into Practice at Emirates Simulation Adcademy

Classroom work took on practical relevance this week as five Electrical Engineering students travelled from Al Ain Men's College to Abu Dhabi to visit the Emirates Simulation Academy.

The trip, which focused particularly on use of the Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Simulator, completed the knowledge the students had acquired in class and was enthusiastically received.

The Emirates Simulation Academy is a newly-established training centre that provides specialized technical training for personnel in the power generation, water desalination, oil refining, and oil and gas processing industries. The ESA offers a wide range of customized training programs and short courses to prepare young United Arab Emirates nationals for entry into the country’s key industries as well as maintaining and upgrading the skills of experienced employees.

"Knowledge Without Borders" To Supply Families in Sharjah With Personal Libraries

Emirati families in Sharjah will have new opportunities to improve literacy as Shaikha Bodour Bint Sultan Al Qasimi and the Government of Sharjah launch the "Knowledge Without Borders" project Thursday 27 November.

The project will ensure that every Emirati family in Sharjah is provided with a home library of 50 Arabic-language books.

The project aims to increase the general knowledge of local community members, especially children, in order to enforce culture and re-establish national identity. Titles for each library will include religious books, scientific books, novels and stories.

"We face challenges that influence our values, customs and traditions, that obliged us to increase the knowledge base for the community members, which would in return preserve our Islamic and Arabic identity and language," Said Marwan Jasem Al Sarkal, Deputy Head of the Organizing Committee.

Read more about the initiative in The Gulf News Online.

Original report: Gulf News : The Nation : Education

Collection Spotlight: New eBooks, November 2008

November's eBooks are hot off the server and ready for your perusal. Check out the featured list of new eBooks @ HCT and explore your favorites today!

AAMC Students Participate in World Water Monitoring Day

In a first for HCT and the UAE as a whole, 14 students studying in the CERT Food Inspection program at Al Ain Men's College participated in the World Water Monitoring Day Programme.

Data collected and submitted by the students ensures that the UAE will now be on the list of WWMD participating countries.

The students collected water samples from various sites around the UAE, using GPS to record the exact location of each test site. Using water testing kits supplied by the United States Geological Survey, samples were tested in the field for dissolved oxygen, PH, clarity, and temperature.

Back at the CERT lab, students futher tested for nitrites, nitrates, molybdenum, flouride and sulfites.

World Water Monitoring Day is an international educational and outreach programme that builds public awareness and involvement in protecting water resources around the world. The WWMD’s aim is to develop community awareness about water ecosystems and to encourage people to protect our valuable water resources.

Al Ain Citizens Fill the Reading Gap with Book Lending Club

Two expatriate residents of Al Ain have pooled their resources to create a free book-lending service in the absence of a public library to serve the municipality.

"This is our way of returning something we can to the society," said Stephanie Shimko and Humairah Irfan, founders of the Al Ain Book Sharing Club. "A book is still the best friend of a person, but maintaining this relationship has become a costly affair."

"I would sometimes hear people talk when I went out socially about how 'someone should do something' about the books situation. I never heard anyone say 'I will do something about it'." added Shimko. "That's when the Socius creed of 'take what you need, give what you can' rang in my ears and I decided to give what I could: my books."

Shimko, and American teacher, and Irfan, a Pakistani IT professional, have created a web site for the lending club where interested readers can request items from the collection. They are also actively soliciting shelf space in local businesses and community centres.

With a current inventory of approximately 230 books, Shimko and Irfan invite others to contribute their personal libraries to the project.

Read the full story on the Gulf News Online, and check out the Club's growing collection on the Al Ain Book Club's web site.

Original Report: Gulf News: The Nation

(Article edited 29 December 2009 to correct the URL of The Al Ain Book Lending Club's website. Thanks to Ms. Shimko for supplying HCT Library News with the corrected information.)

November 2008 @ AAMC: The Other Elections!

Election fever hit Al Ain Men's College early in November with the formation of the Student Council for 2008. With a new selection process, format and constitution in place, this year's Student Council is designed to have representatives from all programme areas and levels within the college and be actively engaged in organising student activities and events.

Selection of candidates began in October with the nomination process, in which students and staff submitted names of competent, enthusiastic and intelligent individuals. The college foyer was festooned with campaign posters designed by the nominees. Academic departments were then tasked with organising their own elections. Elections ranged from traditional ballot-boxes to online voting with a website set up for students to vote. Faizal Din, an AAM IT faculty member, designed the website for Business and IT students, setting up user names and passwords for students to record their votes.

Students responded with great enthusiasm to this new process, many of them working assiduously to create attractive campaign posters and to gather support. It will be very interesting to see the activities organised by this enthusiastic group of students during the remainder of this academic year.