Community Science Symposiums

The Aquarium of the Pacific hosts the California Community Science Symposium inspiring science exploration in local communities, connecting people to nature, showcasing experience with data collection, and providing options for ongoing participation as community scientists.

Everyone is welcome as we gather organizations and match them with passionate people who want to understand our world together. Panel discussions offer relevant local eco-happenings and hands-on interactive exploration. The extended time allows attendees to ask questions and investigate areas of research and volunteering.

Key speakers, professionals, students, and volunteers share biodiversity information and give short updates on progress. With the help of technological tools, like apps and tracking databases, volunteers hear how they can easily record and submit data about local species from home or online as part of a team of community scientists (formerly known as citizen scientists).

Previous speakers have joined us from organizations including the Aquarium of the Pacific; Catalina Marine Society; Pacific Marine Mammal Care Center; Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy; Scripps Institution of Oceanography; Southern California Sea Turtle Monitoring Project and USC Sea Grant.

The Aquarium has hosted community science symposiums in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2023. Summaries from past symposiums are catalogued here. When these symposiums were held, citizen science was the more commonly used phrase for community science.