You can’t care about what you don’t know. Through Ocean Education and Havet i skolan, Voice of the Ocean is helping teachers bring the ocean into everyday learning — giving young people the knowledge, curiosity and connection they need to understand why the sea matters.

The ocean children already love

Children rarely need convincing that the ocean is interesting.

Show them a whale, a shark, a clownfish, a jellyfish or some strange creature from the deep, and curiosity arrives almost by itself. The ocean has all the ingredients young minds respond to: scale, mystery, danger, beauty, colour, movement and life that seems almost too strange to be real.

It is vast enough to feel like another world. Close enough to shape this one.

And yet, despite lying at the heart of the planet and the life it supports, the ocean is still strangely absent from how many young people learn to understand the world.

It surrounds continents. It regulates climate. It absorbs heat. It produces much of the oxygen we breathe. It may host as much as 80% of life on Earth. Still, for many children, the ocean remains a flat blue shape on a classroom map — present, but unexplained.

That gap matters.

Because we cannot care for what we do not understand. And we cannot expect the next generation to protect a living system they have never really been taught to know.

The invisible ocean

This is where Ocean Education begins.

As one of the key pillars of Voice of the Ocean, Ocean Education works to raise ocean literacy by bringing the sea into the education and everyday learning of young people. So far, it has reached an estimated 280,000 children and young people. But the ambition reaches further than numbers.

The aim is to make the ocean visible where it has too often been missing.

“There’s a global problem,” explains Niklas Nilsson, Head of Ocean Education. “The ocean isn’t explicitly covered in most national curricula, including Sweden’s.”

The consequence is not only a gap in knowledge. It is a gap in connection.

If children grow up without understanding how the ocean shapes climate, food, weather, biodiversity and human life, the sea can remain distant in their imagination. Something to visit in summer. Something to draw in blue. Something full of animals, but not necessarily part of the systems that keep life on Earth working.

Ocean Education exists to change that.

Not by making the ocean another burden for teachers to carry, but by making it easier to bring into the classroom.

Starting earlier

The founders of VOTO and its associated organisations came with deep experience in ocean storytelling, underwater filmmaking, diving and science. They knew how to reach audiences with images, documentaries and stories from beneath the surface.

But a question remained.

Were they arriving too late?

“We felt we needed to start earlier,” Niklas says. “Kids who will inherit the ocean should have this inspiration and insight from the beginning.”

That thought became a turning point.

If adults need stronger ocean awareness, children need the chance to grow up with it from the start. Not as an extra topic added at the end of a lesson, but as part of how they learn about the planet they live on.

Ocean Education grew from that idea — and from the same experimental, action-led mindset that shaped much of VOTO’s work.

Niklas did not come from the school system. The team did not begin with a fixed rulebook. What they had was ocean knowledge, creative experience and a clear sense that something important was missing.

“We had strong skills in underwater filmmaking, documentaries and science,” he says. “But not formal education.”

Carl Douglas, VOTO’s co-founder, encouraged action over hesitation. As Niklas recalls, the attitude was simple:

“Let’s do it. How hard can it be?”

There is a spark in that line that says something important about VOTO. Not reckless confidence, but a willingness to begin. To test. To learn. To build where a gap exists.

And in ocean education, the gap was clear.

Ten things to know

The first step was deliberately simple.

A project called Ten Things You Need to Know About the Ocean began with a basic question: if someone knew nothing about the sea, what should they understand first?

The answers ranged from climate regulation and biodiversity to the fact that the ocean produces roughly half the oxygen we breathe. The project was illustrated by beloved Swedish artist Lasse Åberg and animated for social media, helping make essential ocean knowledge accessible, memorable and shareable.

It worked.

The project gained traction. That momentum led to a children’s book, The Ocean Is Your Best Friend. Teachers began using it in class — and then started asking for more.

That response reshaped the direction of Ocean Education.

The need was not only for beautiful content. It was for practical support. Teachers were interested. Children were curious. But the barriers were real: limited time, crowded syllabuses and a lack of confidence in teaching ocean topics.

The solution had to be useful, not just inspiring.

“Our job became lowering the threshold,” Niklas says. “Making it easy to bring the ocean into class.”

Havet i skolan

From that approach grew Havet i skolan — The Sea in School — a free online platform launched in 2023.

The idea is straightforward: gather high-quality ocean teaching materials in one place, align them with the curriculum and give teachers clear guidance on how to use them.

In practice, that makes a significant difference.

Teachers do not need to start from zero. They do not need to search across scattered resources, adapt complex scientific material alone or feel they must become ocean experts overnight. Havet i skolan is designed as a practical, accessible ‘one stop shop’ for time-pressured teachers who want to bring the ocean into their lessons.

VOTO also produces its own materials, drawing on Deep Sea Productions’ archive of films, images and photography. That gives teachers access not only to facts, but to visual storytelling that can help the ocean come alive in the classroom.

The long-term vision is ambitious: the ocean as a formal, explicit part of school education.

But the strategy is pragmatic. Rather than waiting for curriculum change from above, Ocean Education works from the classroom up.

“We’re helping teachers integrate ocean topics now,” Niklas explains. “It’s faster and more practical. Over time, that builds the case for formal inclusion.”

This is VOTO’s theory of change in action: find the gap, build the knowledge, share it openly, and help it move into the places where understanding can grow.

Beyond the classroom

Ocean learning does not only happen at school.

Children encounter the sea in many ways: at sailing clubs, on beaches, in aquaria, at zoos, through exhibitions, books, games, films and family conversations. Ocean Education recognises that curiosity can begin almost anywhere.

That is why its work extends beyond the classroom.

Partnerships with sailing clubs, diving organisations and public venues help reach children in the places where they are already close to water, animals, movement and discovery. Exhibitions at zoos and aquaria offer another route, catching curiosity where it naturally arises.

Together, these routes form a wide net for ocean literacy.

Some children may first meet the ocean through a book. Others through a teacher. Others through a workshop, a sailing event, a film, an exhibition or a game. What matters is not that the path is the same. What matters is that the connection begins.

A response from teachers

The response has been encouraging.

Around 25,000 copies of Ocean Education’s first two books have been distributed, ordered by roughly 4,000 teachers. Feedback arrives in emails, photos of classroom projects and requests for visits.

“People are hugely excited,” Niklas says.

That excitement matters because teachers are often the bridge between knowledge and lasting understanding. When a teacher feels confident bringing the ocean into class, the subject can move from occasional fascination to everyday learning.

A single lesson can become a discussion. A book can become a project. A classroom question can become a lifelong interest.

And for many children, that may be the moment the ocean changes from something far away into something they feel connected to.

From facts to feeling

At its heart, Ocean Education is not only about facts, diagrams and lesson plans.

It is about wonder.

Facts matter. Children should understand that the ocean regulates climate, supports biodiversity, produces oxygen and shapes life on Earth. But knowledge becomes more powerful when it is connected to feeling.

When children learn about the sea through stories, images, animals and questions they can hold in their own imagination, the ocean becomes more than information. It becomes something alive.

That is the deeper purpose of Havet i skolan.

Not simply to teach the ocean, but to help young people build a relationship with it.

Because when children are given the chance, they do not just learn about the sea. They become engaged in it.

And engagement, more than information alone, is what endures.