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

• Teachers: download a Field Trip form for the school year or the summer
• Parents: register your 3 to 5 year old for a Micro Bio class
• Map (Google Maps)
• Directions & Parking (PDF)
• Questions? Contact us at 310.393.6149

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.