Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History was established in 1916 as the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Seven years later, the museum opened the doors to its current campus. Today, the museum features a collection of 3.5 million specimens and artifacts ranging across every aspect of natural history, including birds, mammals, and marine life, anthropology, astronomy, geology, and paleontology. The museum is also home to the only planetarium on California's Central Coast.

In 1987, the museum built the Sea Center on Stearns Wharf. The Sea Center's small aquarium and marine education facility enable audiences to have hands-on encounters with life from the Santa Barbara Channel and to understand marine environments more thoroughly. Through its exhibits and programming, the museum is committed to highlighting the critical relationship between humans and nature.