The 2204-C High School Students’ Polar Research Projects Competition is in full swing and continues to captivate finalists with new innovations every year. Approximately 200 teachers and students involved in the 60 projects that made it to the finals of this year’s competition earned the right to give oral presentations at the 6th National Polar Sciences Workshop, organized by the TÜBİTAK MAM Institute of Polar Research and hosted by Karadeniz Technical University, and successfully completed their presentations on December 1, Antarctic Day.

As part of the 2204-C High School Students“ Polar Research Projects Competition, organized annually by TÜBİTAK, three young high school students involved in the project selected as the top winner out of 611 project submissions will carry out their projects during the 7th National Antarctic Science Expedition. The project, titled ”Production of Domestic and Nationally Sourced Bioplastic Materials to Prevent Microplastic Pollution in Polar Oceans,” was supervised by Selin Sağdıç and carried out by students Azra Ayşe Bıçakçı, Hilal Başak Demirel, and Zeynep İpek Yanmaz. This project, which falls under the field of Physical Sciences, aligns with the goals of the United Nations Decade of the Ocean (2021–2030) and is significant for both polar research and climate change studies.