The 2026 Ocean Awareness Contest – Your Story, Our Ocean – encourages you to explore the many ways our ocean sustains, protects, and inspires us. Bow Seat invite you to think about your personal connection to the ocean – whether you’re coastal or landlocked – through the value it brings to your life. The benefits of the ocean are widespread and multifaceted, from food production to climate regulation to artistic inspiration. How does the ocean sustain, protect, and inspire you? You are invited to submit works of visual art, creative writing, poetry, spoken word, music, dance, film, and multimedia for a chance to win cash awards of up to $1,000 and to join the world’s largest environmental youth community for the creative arts.

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The 2025 Ocean Awareness Contest, “Connections to Nature, Looking Inside, Going Outside“, encourages students to explore the natural world and their place in it through the lenses of generational knowledge, human health, urban environments, resiliency, and more. You are invited to submit works of visual art, creative writing, poetry, spoken word, music, dance, film, and multimedia for a chance to win cash awards of up to $1,000 and to join the world’s largest environmental youth community for the creative arts. The Contest is free to enter and open to students worldwide, ages 11-18.

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Bow Seat’s True Blue Fellowship (formerly the Fellowship Grant Program) aims to connect and empower youth around the world to leverage the creative arts to enact change in local communities to safeguard the ocean, waterways, and the climate. If you want to make a difference in your community, Bow Seat invite you to participate in the True Blue Fellowship. The True Blue Fellowship provides mentorship, capacity building, and funding of up to $2,500 for 10 youth-led projects that address ocean, waterways, and/or climate change issues in their local communities through a creative arts lens.

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The 2024 Ocean Awareness Contest – Tell Your Climate Story – encourages students to become a climate witness and share their own unique climate story. You are invited to creatively express your personal experiences, insights, or perceptions about our changing climate reality. Use this opportunity to learn about the climate crisis and how it impacts your family and community, and to examine your individual responses to our evolving world. 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.

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The 2023 Ocean Awareness Contest – Climate Heroes in Action – encourages students to learn about both climate change and solutions to the climate crisis. Bow Seat want to celebrate the work of countless everyday heroes fighting to make the world more habitable and just in the face of human-induced climate change. These heroes are leading with determination, resolve, and even joy to create a better world for us all. 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.

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The 2022 Ocean Awareness Contest theme “The Funny Thing About Climate Change” challenges students to learn about climate change and its impact on the ocean, and to explore new ways to communicate the urgency of the climate crisis. Bow Seat are looking for innovative pieces that challenge our expectations for what climate change messaging should look like. How can you talk about climate change in a fresh way? How can you capture attention without sacrificing your message? 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.

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The 2021 Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Student Contest, themed: Water Rising, has opened for entry to participants worldwide. The Contest 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? More than $5,000 will be awarded in 2021, 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.

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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.

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The 2019 Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Student Contest, themed: Presence of Future, has opened for entry to participants worldwide. Participants are invited to create a piece about a coastal/marine species, place, or system that will be threatened, altered, or lost due to climate change. From organism to ecosystem, what are the impacts of climate change on our ocean? More than $5,000 will be awarded in 2019, 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.

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The 2018 Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Student Contest has opened for entry to participants from all around the world for visual art, poetry, prose, film, and music work. The theme for the 2018 contest is: Our Oceans in a Changing Climate. Winners may earn awards of up to $1,500. A total of 10 prizes will be awarded in Junior and Senior divisions. Additional awards are available in 2018 as well.

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