Orange Coast College Aquarium

The Dennis Kelly Public Aquarium at Orange Coast College is one of the cornerstones of the Marine Science Department. This versatile resource is a unique training and community education facility where students get hands-on experience working with a remarkably diverse collection of aquatic organisms. The aquarium helps provides a depth of experiential learning unrivaled by traditional lectures, textbooks, photos, and videos. From leopard sharks to jellies, the aquarium is a key resource for OCC students to refine their species knowledge, animal husbandry, and aquarium life support maintenance skills.

The OCC Aquarium is a student-run aquarium that features facilitated peer education. Students working towards the Certificate in Aquarium Science play an active role in the design, maintenance, and management of the OCC Aquarium. While the marine science faculty teach all courses within the department, maintenance of the life support systems and organisms primarily falls to the students, student aquarium managers, work study students, and aquarium staff. This provides hands-on experience in a format similar to an apprenticeship in disciplines ranging from biology, ecology, animal husbandry, aquaculture, water chemistry and water quality testing as well as system construction and maintenance. It also offers experience with group management and problem solving while maintaining multiple types of aquarium systems as part of a team, and requires student managers to be proactive in finding and addressing potential problems. The development of communication and teaching skills are critical since student managers take an active role in teaching new students as well as leading public tours and educational events. 

The aquarium and its dedicated student managers support a myriad of other classes ranging from marine biology to intertidal ecology and oceanography labs so students can view, study, and gain husbandry experience taking care of a diverse array of tropical and temperate saltwater, freshwater, and brackish organisms. It helps foster collaborations with other college departments, universities, educational or research facilities, and government resource management agencies. The aquarium is also used as a reference resource for classes from other departments ranging from art and photography to biology and astronomy. OCC students are encouraged to use the facility for student research symposium projects or to set up experiments to better understand marine community ecology and aquaculture techniques.