Education & Camps

A lifetime of Learning

Education is a top priority of Heal the Bay. Whether you visit our public, marine education center on a school field trip, attend a free evening lecture on a marine science related topic, send your budding young scientist to our Micro Biologist classes or bring a group to one of our school year education programs, you will leave the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium with a new sense of wonder and appreciation for the amazing marine life of the Santa Monica Bay.

Getting Started

The Aquarium is a premier field trip destination for school groups and an educational resource for the entire Los Angeles region. Located at the historic Santa Monica Pier, with the Pacific Ocean just outside its doors, we exhibit more than 100 species of plant and animal life native to the Santa Monica Bay.

The moray eels that are the centerpiece of the Rocky Reef exhibit greet each student; touch tanks teeming with animals of the tide pools – sea stars and sea urchins, anemones and hermit crabs, snails and sea cucumbers, to name a few - invite hands-in-the-water exploration; the majestic sea jelly exhibit beckons from an interactive pollution exhibit.

Our marine science center uses every square inch to support Heal the Bay’s mission and engage, inform and inspire conservation and stewardship. Students learn how they can help keep Southern California’s coastal waters and watersheds, including Santa Monica Bay, safe, healthy and clean.

One Wily Octopus, 200 Gallons of Spilled Water

One of the first changes Heal the Bay made 10 years ago when becoming owners of the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium was to retire an underutilized gift shop in the Aquarium, converting the space into the Kids’ Corner.
The Night the Octopus Flooded Heal the Bay's Santa Monica Pier Aquarium

We Know Where We're Headed in 2013

As representatives of Heal the Bay, we often get asked: “Is the bay healed yet?” People know we’ve been at this a long time (more than 25 years). While the answer is a qualified “yes,” we still work every day to fulfill our mission to make …
heal the Bay goals 2013 education science youth teachers aquarium santa monica

Teens Team Up with Holocaust Survivors for PSA

Through a powerful collaboration between Holocaust survivors and teen filmmakers, Heal the Bay received a video gift that will definitely keep on giving. Students produced It’s Not Just One, a public service announcement that vividly depicts the im…
Idele and Michael, photo credit: Michelle Paster

Thank You Thursday - 1.10.13

Support for our work at Heal the Bay comes from such varied sources, that sometimes we feel more like curators than water quality advocates, scientists and educators.
Heal the Bay Thank You Thursday Heart Beach

Hope Soars Above the Parking Lot

On a recent Thursday, our four-person crew met to lead a water chemistry field trip—aka “Creek 101”— at Compton Creek. However, just as students arrived a dramatic downpour cancelled the field trip and left us to explore and contemplate other…
white-tailed kite compton creek habitat watershed Heal the Bay education

Thank You Thursday - 12.20.12

At Heal the Bay, we are so grateful to the ocean that every December, we promote sacking plastic bags and going reusable for the holidays...and all year round. Plastic bags clog our waterways, poisoning marine animals and posing health risks for huma…
Thank You Thursday 2012 Day Without A Bag Olvera Heal the Bay

Preparing Youth for Bag-Free Future

As Angelenos head toward a reusable future, with L.A. City Council moving forward on an ordinance banning plastic single-use bags that’s expected to be approved in spring 2013, Heal the Bay staff decided it was time to refresh our approach to our s…
A Day Without a Bag youth December 20 Hollywood Compton Amoeba

"Saturday Story Time" Hits the Road

Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium is taking its popular Saturday “Story Time” program out on the road to appear in Santa Monica libraries and other nearby locations.
Story Time at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium
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