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Nature
Monterey Bay Aquarium Online Courses
Monterey Bay Aquarium runs online courses built around marine animals, with observation and making activities.
The youngest courses center on sea otters and tide pools, while older learners study birds, sharks, ocean habitats and plastic pollution. Otter Spotters combines movement, puppet making, food drawings and a behavior checklist tied to an animal camera. Several of the courses also come in Spanish.
- Ages
- PreK through middle school; select the course grade
- Works on
- Web browser
- Topics
- Nature, Science
- Languages
- English, Spanish selected courses
- Listed
- 2026-10-11
What kids do
- Make a sea-otter puppet
- Keep an animal behavior checklist
- Create a model tide pool
- Investigate shark diversity
Who it suits
Courses span preK through middle school, each labeled by grade. The aquarium designs the earliest ones to be done with a caregiver.
Notes for parents
Enrollment goes through the aquarium’s course platform, and a drawing, model or notebook can sit alongside the watching.
What you need
- Course enrollment
- A caregiver for the youngest courses
- Craft materials, which vary
Visit Monterey Bay Aquarium Online Courses
In these guides
- For kids who can’t stop talking about animals: places to look things up: Animal websites and apps for curious kids, from zoo and aquarium sites to apps about mammals and coral reefs, grouped by the kind of animal a child is into.
More Nature
- Seek by iNaturalist: Kids seem to spend their time aiming a camera at leaves, beetles and birds, then filing each find into a growing collection.
- Merlin Bird ID: Kids hold a phone up to birdsong or snap a photo, and Merlin suggests which birds might be around them.
- Earth Rangers: Kids pick real-world conservation missions, earn badges and hear wildlife stories through the Earth Rangers app and podcast.
- Cornell Lab Bird Cams: Kids watch live cameras trained on real nests and feeders, with hawks, ospreys, albatrosses and toucans going about their day.
- Ranger Rick: Kids meet wild animals through Ranger Rick’s stories, photos, reading games, videos and a wildlife podcast.
- Journey North: Kids report the monarchs, hummingbirds and other migrants they spot, then watch sightings sweep across a live map.
- National Geographic Kids: National Geographic Kids mixes animal profiles, short videos, quizzes and puzzles on a browsable discovery site.
- San Diego Zoo Wildlife Explorers: San Diego Zoo Wildlife Explorers has animal and plant profiles, zoo stories, facts and printable activities.