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.

Skull Cleaning 101

Editor’s Note: This is the third installment of Santa Monica Pier Aquarium Director Vicki Wawerchak’s account of preparing harbor seal and sea lion skulls to become artifacts on display at the Aquarium. (Read Parts One and Two)
Articulated mammal skulls

Creek 101: Take Me to the River

 “Where did the river go?” So wondered Heal the Bay's inaugural class of Creek Week students as they finished their trek along the Los Angeles River, moving from Big Tujunga Creek down to the river’s mouth in San Pedro. Mere days ago …

Plastic Bag Wars Heat Up

The August 4 issue of Rolling Stone reveals the U.S. plastics industry’s formidable efforts to protect the use of plastic shopping bags and highlights Heal the Bay’s strong commitment to banning their use in cities and municipalities. “We're go…
Rolling Stone Bag Wars

How to Keep L.A.'s Taps Flowing

In 2008, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa released a visionary plan for moving Los Angeles away from its reliance on imported water. The mayor's plan was reasonable and achievable; we just have to follow it. Read more from Mark Gold at the Los Angeles Time…
Tap water

Manhattan Beach Wins Plastic Bag Case

On Thursday, the California Supreme Court issued a decision reversing a previous Court of Appeal decision that ruled the City of Manhattan Beach should have conducted a full Environmental Impact Report to inform their plastic bag ban ordinance adopte…
Plastic Bags

Rejoice! It's Time for Camp!

Editor’s note: Roberta Brown is a Santa Monica-based writer, fight choreographer and mother (three vocations that she says go surprisingly well together). She is the West Coast Editor for Nickelodeon's ParentsConnect.
Children at the Aquarium touch tanks

Weird Science: Part Two

Editor’s Note: Vicki Wawerchak, director of the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium, chronicles the process of preparing two sea lion skulls and one harbor seal skull to become marine artifacts on exhibit at the aquarium. This is the second installment of h…
Skull
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