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Welcome

Located in Newport Beach, CA on Shellmaker Island, off of Back Bay Drive next to the Newport Dunes. This facility provides year-round educational programs emphasizing estuarine and marine ecology; connecting these concepts to the greater watershed. Over 750 thousand people (approximately the total population of Alaska) live in this watershed, which incorporates nine densely populated and urbanized cities. Non-point source pollutants from these urban areas funnel down through the Back Bay estuary and out to the Pacific Ocean. The Back Bay Science Center strives towards educating local citizens, particularly future generations, on the critical role they play in their watershed. Our goal is for people to understand what specific activities they should or should not do at home that will help protect the Back Bay.

MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of the Back Bay Science Center is to provide a hands-on facility where students and the public can study and enjoy the estuarine ecology of Newport Bay, and the marine ecology of the ocean, while promoting natural resource conservation and stewardship throughout the watershed.

Visiting the Back Bay Science Center

The Back Bay Science Center is not typically open to the public or groups without visitors being pre-registered for a specific function, such as a scheduled field trip or workshop.  Although the facility is not a visitors center like the Peter and Mary Muth Interpretive Center and is located on an Ecological Reserve, we are open to the public on Sundays from 10 AM until 2 PM for our Community Day.  For more general information please call 949-640-9958 or view more detailed information on our website.

For more information about educational programs hosted at the Back Bay Science Center, click here.

Contact Us

Contact us if you have any questions, comments, or concerns. We will get back to you as soon as we are able.