The Sea We Breathe VR coming to schools near you

Blue Marine Foundation, an ocean conservation charity, has launched "The Sea We Breathe - Virtual Reality Experience" narrated by Helena Bonham Carter in a London school, to educate and inspire the next generation on the need to preserve the ocean. Is it coming to a school near you next? Find out more here:

From examining plankton, to shoals of glittering fish, The Sea We Breathe VR experience draws viewers deep into unique underwater worlds, exploring three marine habitats; open ocean, kelp forests and seagrass meadows. The experience highlights how the ocean plays a crucial role in fighting climate change, through the capture and storage of carbon – known in the ocean as “blue carbon.” 

Blue Marine Foundation partnered with Unseen Studio to design the experience, which made its debut at Earlsfield Primary School in South West London before it being rolled out to over 800 schools across the UK. 

Joanna Coumbe, Director of Outreach, Blue Marine Foundation explains “The ocean produces as much as 80 percent of Earth’s oxygen and captures 40% of the carbon emitted by burning fossil fuels - therefore its role in the fight against climate change is absolutely vital. By creating this VR experience we hope to educate future decision makers in ocean-climate issues like never before. Traditional education methods are often not enough to trigger behaviour change and VR creates psychological presence, or a sense of “being there”, which encourages adoption of pro-environmental behaviours. VR has also been shown to increase the likelihood of prosocial or “helping” behaviour, which could be instrumental in driving long-term change.”

Blue Marine Foundation took a lesson with Year 6 pupils at Earlsfield Primary School before giving the school an Oculus headset, allowing all pupils to enjoy the wonders of the ocean up close whilst learning about the diversity of its breathtaking ecosystem in an interactive way.

Headmaster Steve Trow said “We are delighted to work with Blue Marine Foundation on this experience as it brings the outside world into the classroom and puts learning into a real life context. That is something pupils don’t get from textbooks - it provides a whole new level of engagement and understanding.” 

Through a partnership with Let’s Localise - a hub dedicated to building a sustainable future through education - the VR experience will be accessible to over 800 UK schools from later in February. To ensure global impact, a further collaboration with Class VR will widen distribution to 90 countries across the globe from March. And, in a more targeted approach, Blue Marine Foundation project teams will be taking the experience to communities supported by the charity’s work, to further deepen understanding that climate action is ocean action. 

The Sea We Breathe VR experience follows the successful film, The Sea We Breathe, narrated by actor Steven Fry, which has been viewed 1.6 million times globally and won eight awards, including a Webby Award. 

Joanna Coumbe continues “We wanted to create this VR experience to shine a light on the beauty and resilience of the ocean, opening up its depths to a wide audience of children and those who ordinarily would never get to see its brilliance. The ocean covers 70 percent of the earth’s surface and makes up 95 per cent of the planet’s biosphere and Blue Marine Foundation is dedicated to restoring the ocean to health by addressing overfishing, one of the world’s biggest environmental problems.”

Helena Bonham Carter said: “The voice of the next generation has never been more important. The future of the planet rests - more than ever - in their hands. Connecting children to the life-saving solutions that the ocean can provide is one of the greatest gifts we can offer, and the virtual reality experience I’ve had the pleasure to support can do exactly that.” 

Tom Anderson leads the team at Unseen Studio, designers of the VR experience. He said “We developed an immersive underwater experience allowing users to step into an aquatic world of wonder. The experience was developed as a web-based platform to ensure it was as accessible as possible. We then optimised it for MetaQuest for those lucky enough to have access to more advanced VR devices.”

Click here to view the VR experience on mobile or desktop: https://vrbluemarine.com/