This weekend marks an important celebration – UN World Ocean Day 2025, will take place on Sunday, 8th June. This day is dedicated to celebrating the ocean and raising awareness about the importance of marine ecosystems for humanity and nature. The theme for this year’s World Ocean Day is “WONDER” – the wonder of the ocean amazes us and inspires us to take action to protect it. Schools around the world will be celebrating this important day, a little earlier, on Friday, 6th June.
To mark this important day, we are excited to share a brand new resource, which has been developed the Global Citizenship team, as part of the Global Goals Book Club initiative. The new resource centres around the book Manfish by Jennifer Berne. This beautifully illustrated book tells the story of Jacques Cousteau, the pioneering ocean explorer whose passion for the sea helped the world understand the wonders, and fragility, of life beneath the waves.
Aligned with Global Goal 14: Life Below Water, Manfish encourages students to reflect on the importance of protecting our oceans, marine life, and underwater ecosystems. Through Cousteau’s story, children can learn about the impact of pollution, overfishing, and climate change on ocean health, and discover how their actions can help. This resource is best suited to infants up to 3rd class. You can access a free read-aloud recording of Manfish, on YouTube, at this link, and you can:
You can also find lots more information about the day at worldoceanday.school where you can register your school’s participation and avail of more free Ocean Day activities and resources. We would love to see photos of your World Ocean Day celebrations, and you can tag us on social media @GreenSchoolsIre #worldoceanday to share your images with us.
We hope you have a WONDERful World Ocean Day and thank you for all your hard work in school, becoming more sustainable for a healthy ocean and a healthy planet!