The project carried out by Ahsen Karakuş and Begüm Abdulhayoğlu—who were finalists in the Social and Humanities Sciences category of the 2204-C High School Students’ Polar Research Projects Competition, which concluded in 2022 amid great interest from young people—continues to attract attention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52trKTatOc4&ab_channel=MustafaKemalKalkan

The young people summarize their projects as follows:

Our knowledge of the polar regions generally does not go beyond polar bears, penguins, and the fact that they are remote and cold. The polar regions play a key role not only in relation to factors such as climate change and rising greenhouse gas emissions, but also in terms of the world’s past and future.

Our project’s objective is to encourage students to engage in polar research by creating a national and locally produced animation that raises awareness of the polar regions, introduces Turkish scientists conducting research in the Poles and their work, as well as the peoples of the Arctic and polar wildlife, and provides information while encouraging scientific research. Additionally, we aim to highlight the social and human sciences within the context of polar research and to analyze the impact of the animation we have created on students using evaluation scales.

In our literature review, we did not come across any national or domestic animations produced about the Antarctic and Arctic regions. The contributions made to polar science by Turkish scientists who have participated in polar research from the past to the present are not sufficiently known by the general public. Furthermore, there is a clear need for entertaining, informative, and engaging tools—such as animations—to increase young people’s knowledge of the polar regions and encourage them to pursue polar research.

That is why we felt the need to create this animation. We began our work with our consultant, Mustafa Kemal Kalkan. We developed our script based on the information we gathered from our literature review. After creating our character designs, we recorded the voiceovers. After a long, exhausting, yet equally enjoyable process, we completed our project.

Another unique aspect of our project is the creation of animated characters based on our scientists who travel to the polar regions: Burcu Özsoy, Hakan Yavaşoğlu, Sinan Yirmibeşoğlu, and Özgün Oktar. Our characters provide information about the importance of the polar regions and offer encouraging advice to the younger generation to pursue scientific research. The Inuit, one of the Arctic peoples, are also featured in our animation, and information about their culture is provided. Polar animals in our animation present scientific and interesting facts about the polar regions.

The results of the study showed that students watched the animation with interest and began asking questions and conducting research about the Poles. The fact that students wanted to share the animation with those around them indicates that the intended goals were achieved in terms of widespread impact and sustainability.