Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Challenge for 11-18 Year Olds (Over $5,000 Cash Prize)

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Deadline: 14th June 2021

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 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. What are the stories we need to tell about water to sustain and conserve it for current and future generations of life on Earth?

Eligibility

This is an international contest and is open to students ages 11-18 who are enrolled in middle school or high school (or the homeschool equivalent) worldwide. Proof of age, identity, or eligibility may be required.
Students ages 11-14 may enter the Junior Division. Students ages 15-18 may enter the Senior Division. Please enter the age division based on your age at the time of entry.
Participants under the age of 13 must have a parent or legal guardian complete a Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Parent/Guardian Consent Form with their submission.
Entries may be submitted by an individual or group of unlimited size. If you submit as a group, there must be one group leader who will serve as the contact person for the group. All of the names of the group members must be listed in the submission. Award money will be split evenly among the group members.
A student may submit (i.e., have their name included in) only one entry per category. Therefore, a student may have a maximum of six different submissions, one in each category.

Prizes

Gold Award: Junior Division - $1,000 ; Senior Division - $1,500
Silver Award: Junior Division - $750 ; Senior Division - $1,000
Bronze Award: Junior Division - $250 ; Senior Division - $500
Honourable Mention: Junior Division - $100 ; Senior Division - $150

How to Participate

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?

Students may submit one entry per prompt/category, meaning that you may enter up to six pieces, one in each category. If you submit more than one entry in a category (for example, two poems), additional entries will not be counted or judged.

Submissions are accepted in: