Seagrass Stories

Work alongside marine ecologist and OceanX Resident Scientist Nada Abdelkader to restore a damaged seagrass meadow.

You have 60-seconds to complete your mission of clearing trash from a degraded seagrass habitat and placing as many restoration mats as you can. Then watch how the meadow responds as seagrass returns and creates the conditions for a wider community of marine life to flourish.

Inspired by Nada’s real restoration research, Seagrass Stories transforms an innovative nature-based solution into an accessible, hands-on challenge. It introduces the remarkable role of seagrass meadows: providing food, shelter and nursery habitat for marine life, stabilising the seabed, protecting coastlines and storing carbon within coastal sediments.

The experience also reveals that restoration is about much more than planting. A recovering meadow needs suitable environmental conditions, protection from the pressures that damaged it, careful monitoring and sustained human care. What happens in seconds in the game may take months or years in the ocean.

The game is supported by a structured classroom learning journey for learners aged 12 to 14. Through exploration, investigation, reflection and creation, students examine what the game represents, what real restoration requires and how they might communicate ocean recovery to others.

Seagrass Stories grew from an idea Nada had whilst she was taking part in the Early Career Explorers program. Later, during her time as an OceanX Education Resident, she had the chance to further develop the work with wildlife filmmaker James Honeyborne, the University of Bristol and their creative-technology collaborators, Studio Giggle, during a hackathon aboard R/V OceanXplorer.

The experience debuted as an immersive installation at ArtScience Museum in Singapore. OceanX Education’s in-house Immersive and Digital Experiences team has since adapted it into a web-based game that can run on ordinary classroom devices, extending its reach beyond public installations. Together, the game and classroom journey invite young people not simply to restore a digital meadow, but to understand the science, time and continued care required to help a real seagrass ecosystem recover.