2025 Ocean Awareness Contest

2025 Ocean Awareness Contest | Connections to Nature: Looking Inside, Going Outside

A CREATIVE CHALLENGE FOR TEENS WORLDWIDE

Contest Overview

The 14th 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.

Connections to Nature: Looking Inside, Going Outside Prompt

The 2025 Ocean Awareness Contest – Connections to Nature: Looking Inside, Going Outside – encourages you to explore the natural world and your place in it. We invite you to think about your unique connection to nature and how being outside makes you feel. There are so many different ways that you can connect to nature, whether that’s exploring the history of the land you live on, volunteering in the fight against climate change, or taking a restorative walk in your local park. Go through the sub-themes and explore the topics that resonate with you. Share your relationship with the natural world through art, writing, performance, film, or multimedia. What is your connection to nature?

Submissions are accepted in:

• Visual Art: Handcrafted
• Visual Art: Digital
• Poetry & Spoken Word
• Creative Writing
• Film
• Performing Arts: Music & Dance
• Interactive & Multimedia

Please review all submission requirements carefully.

The Contest deadline is June 9, 2025. 

Contest winners will be announced by December 1, 2025.

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

• Your contact information
• Your submission (Visual Art: Handcrafted, Visual Art: Digital, Creative Writing, Film, Interative & Multimedia, Performing Arts: Music & Dance, Poetry & Spoken Word)
• A title for your submission
• Progress photo (required for Visual Art categories)
• Your written reflection
• Works cited (if applicable): List of sources for any ideas, quotes, or facts used that are not your own
• Contact information for an adult sponsor (required for all participants)
• Parent/guardian consent (required if under 13 years old). Click here for more information about parent/guardian consent.

Note: You will be able to save your progress. All submissions must be received by June 9, 2025, at 11:59 PM Eastern Time (ET). The online platform will close automatically at the Contest deadline. Please plan accordingly!

Teachers & Adult Sponsors: You can submit on behalf of your class or multiple student participants. Make one account using your email address, and start a new submission for each individual student (unless they are participating as a group). Click here for more detailed instructions.