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2020 Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Student Contest

The 2020 Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Student Contest, themed: Climate Hope: Transforming Crisis, has opened for entry to participants worldwide.

Climate Hope: Transforming Crisis invites students to learn about the climate crisis and its impact on oceans; discover or imagine solutions at local, national, or global scales; and create work that explores hope in action.

More than $5,000 will be awarded in 2020, in total. Gold, Silver and Bronze Award winners, as well as Honorable Mention winners will be announced in each contest division. Several other special awards will be announced as well.

Students from around the world are invited to participate. Visual art, poetry, prose, film, music, as well as interactive and multimedia works can be entered.

Details about the topic for 2020 are published on the official website.

Earth is a blue planet, with oceans covering more than 70% of its surface. Oceans play a central role in regulating Earth’s climate and act as a buffer that protects us from human-caused global warming; but oceans are feeling the heat. Climate change—primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas—is changing water temperature and chemistry, altering marine habitats, and threatening marine life. Rising sea levels and extreme weather events are endangering and displacing millions of people who live on the coast.

The good news is, there is much cause for hope: individuals, communities and cities, organizations and movements (largely youth-led!) around the globe are already working to slow the climate crisis and drive the transition away from destructive, polluting, and unjust practices to systems that respect, value, and protect the diversity of life on Earth.

From how we get around to how we eat to how we power our lives, transformative solutions to the climate crisis are rooted in imagination and energized by having hope that what we create matters.

Submissions are judged based on:

  • How well they address the annual theme of the Contest
  • Artistic voice, originality, and imagination
  • Craftsmanship, including quality, technique, attention to detail, and accuracy of communicating issues
  • Meeting the Contest submission requirements (such as length, file type, etc.)

Bow Seat, a nonprofit organization based in Massachusetts, USA, provides an innovative space for teens to connect, create, and communicate for our ocean. Working at the intersection of ocean science and arts education, our award-winning programming emphasizes creative thinking and making in exploring the natural world.