Ocean Awareness Contest - Short Film, Poster, Poetry, Dance, Art Contest

The 10th annual Ocean Awareness Contest is a platform for young people to learn about environmental issues through art-making and creative communication, explore their relationship to a changing world, and become advocates for positive change. Students ages 11-18 from around the world are invited to participate.

The ocean makes life on Earth possible.

The ocean regulates global climate, produces more than half of the oxygen we breathe, and holds nearly 97% of Earth’s water. Global ocean systems largely influence life on land, even hundreds of miles from a coastline. Salt, fresh, warm, or cold, all water is connected through the water cycle.

WATER RISING

The 2021 Ocean Awareness Contest theme WATER RISING challenges students to explore and understand their connection to water, and to creatively communicate the need to protect this vital resource and life-sustaining relationship. What are the stories we need to tell about water to sustain and conserve it for current and future generations of life on Earth?

CONTEST DEADLINE: JUNE 14, 2021

Submissions are accepted in:

Visual Art

Creative Writing

Film

Interactive & Multimedia

Performing Arts: Music & Dance

Poetry & Spoken Word

WATER RISING Prompts

The 2021 Ocean Awareness Contest theme is WATER RISING. Your submission(s) should respond to one of the following prompts:

PROMPT 1: Global warming affects the water cycle, fueling extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and droughts. Warming seas are also contributing to sea level rise around the world. Whether too much or too little, water is the primary way we will feel the effects of climate change. How do you feel the effects of climate change where you live? How will this change within your lifetime?

PROMPT 2: We are all interconnected through water. What does it mean to be up- or downstream from one another? Where does your water come from, and what is the journey it takes to get to you?

PROMPT 3: Though water is a basic human right, more than 1 billion people do not have access to clean and safe water worldwide. Access to clean water is increasingly threatened by pollution, privatization, and climate change, but these threats do not impact us all equally. Water contamination and environmental injustice overwhelmingly affect Indigenous communities, people of color, and the poor. How is water a lens through which we can understand and fight for justice? Consider water as a mirror of our society—it reflects back to us who we are. What do you see in the mirror?

PROMPT 4: Clean water is not only necessary to sustain human communities, but all life on Earth. There are many movements rising up to protect water and all those who depend on it. Who has historically led these movements? Who (and what–for example, policies) are our water protectors?

PROMPT 5: Think about the role that water plays in your life, and how that ripples out to connections in your community, society, and the world. What memories do you have of water? What is your water story?

Who May Enter

Students ages 11-18 from around the world are invited to participate in the Ocean Awareness Contest. Enter the division based on your age at the time of entry:

Junior Division: Age 11-14

Senior Division: Age 15-18

Students can participate as an individual or as a club, class, or group of any size.

All students must provide the contact information for an Adult Sponsor (teacher, parent, mentor, etc.).