Immerse yourself in the underwater world of seagrass

This September, Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) is proud to announce the launch of the newest immersive experience in the Digital Ocean School—an exciting 360° exploration of Cornwall’s seagrass meadows. This fifth 360 scene in the series takes viewers on a breath-taking virtual dive with free-diver Kayleigh, highlighting the vital role seagrass plays in carbon sequestration and marine biodiversity.

The Digital Ocean School platform is an innovative 360° online educational tool designed to inspire ocean activism among young people. By immersing users in captivating scenes, it offers a unique opportunity to connect with our blue spaces and learn about the pressing environmental challenges facing our oceans, rivers, and waterways. 

The new Seagrass scene showcases the often-overlooked importance of seagrass beds, which can absorb carbon at up to 35 times the rate of tropical rainforests, while also providing crucial habitats for marine life, including seahorses, crabs, and juvenile fish. So whether you live 5 minutes, or 5 hours from the sea, the Digital Ocean School will transport you to our beaches, rivers and now…underwater seagrass meadows. 

Join our event in Plymouth

Want to see Digital Ocean School through virtual reality.

Join SAS Education Team, Lira Valencia and the team from Earth Minutes for a wonderful immersive morning of ocean connection through our Digital Ocean School. This event is open to anyone, families, educators and ocean activists alike.

Test out our platform with virtual reality headsets, so you can really feel like you are diving underwater, take part in some hands-on activities and have a chat to SAS, Lira and Earth Minutes.

Where: The Box, Plymouth

When: Saturday 26th October 11am-1pm

Facebook event

Youth voices

This year, we were thrilled to work with Lucy Hayto who specialises in visual storytelling, working with virtual reality and other cutting edge technologies to communicate pressing issues like climate change. Lucy helped us deliver hands on workshops to young people from schools in Cornwall to tell their own story of what ocean conservation means to them. Their videos now sit on our Digital Ocean School and we hope to continue incorporating youth voices so we can all listen and learn from them.

Thanks to Project Seagrass

Project Seagrass are doing incredible work to protect our beautiful seagrass meadows. Through outreach, education, research and restoration, the team are at the centre of making a better future for seagrass. We are very thankful to the work they pioneer and also for supporting us in the creation of the new scene on Digital Ocean School, their expertise was invaluable!

Giles Bristow, CEO of Surfers Against Sewage, said:
“We are thrilled to introduce this fifth scene to the Digital Ocean School. Seagrass beds are one of the ocean’s most powerful tools in the fight against climate change, and we hope this immersive experience will inspire the next generation of Ocean Activists to take action and protect these vital ecosystems.”

We can’t wait to hear what you think about the new scene, please send us an email or give us a call if you have any reflections, comments or questions.

Thanks to Earth Minutes, Lira Valencia, Project Seagrass, Kayleigh Slowey, Lucy Hayto and many more for all your contributions – what a wonderful community of ocean lovers!