Community Science

Exhibitions

Exhibition | NHM

Spiky, Hairy, Shiny: Insects of L.A.

Meet your tiny neighbors!

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Events

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Visitors looking up, holding binoculars to their eyes

Tours & Activities

Nature Gardens Exploration

Enjoy NHM’s one-of-a-kind Nature Gardens while learning more about urban wildlife. Visitors of all ages are welcome to stop by anytime during the hour and stay as long or short as you’d like!

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weekly

11:00 am

Saturdays and Sundays

Tours & Activities

Nature Gardens Exploration

Enjoy NHM’s one-of-a-kind Nature Gardens while learning more about urban wildlife. Visitors of all ages are welcome to stop by anytime during the hour and stay as long or short as you’d like!

Learn more

weekly

11:00 am

Saturdays and Sundays

Tours & Activities

Nature Gardens Exploration

Enjoy NHM’s one-of-a-kind Nature Gardens while learning more about urban wildlife. Visitors of all ages are welcome to stop by anytime during the hour and stay as long or short as you’d like!

Learn more

weekly

11:00 am

Saturdays and Sundays

Tours & Activities

Nature Gardens Exploration

Enjoy NHM’s one-of-a-kind Nature Gardens while learning more about urban wildlife. Visitors of all ages are welcome to stop by anytime during the hour and stay as long or short as you’d like!

Learn more

weekly

11:00 am

Saturdays and Sundays

Tours & Activities

Nature Gardens Exploration

Enjoy NHM’s one-of-a-kind Nature Gardens while learning more about urban wildlife. Visitors of all ages are welcome to stop by anytime during the hour and stay as long or short as you’d like!

Learn more

weekly

11:00 am

Saturdays and Sundays

Stories

Ants Are Her Business: Meet Dr. Megan Barkdull, Our New Entomology Curator

Welcome one of NHM’s two new Entomology Curators and discover some of the secrets hiding in ant DNA

LA Nature Quest

Join LA Nature Quest this October and discover and share biodiversity across Los Angeles

The Fairy Poppy Bee's Dance of Fragility and Resilience

Discover one of the 1600 species of native California bees and the intimate portraits in conservation photographer Krystle Hickman's forthcoming book, The ABCs of California Native Bees

Wildfire Smoke in Bird Feathers

NHM researchers look at dirty feathers to understand the effects of wildfire smoke on birds

Community Conservation at Elephant Hill

How co-created community science helps in the fight to save East L.A.'s largest open space

Baccalaureates in Biodiversity

Meet the first graduating class of NHMLAC’s extraordinary mentorship and apprenticeship program—UNLAB (Understanding Nature and L.A. Biodiversity). Discover what eight college grads learned about fish, snails, and other creatures of the natural world from ancient times to the present—and how to protect them in the future.

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A Guide to:
Birds of Los Angeles

Newspaper clipping showing collection of publisher and Museum donor William Preston Harrison, 1896

NHMLAC Discovery Talk: Decolonizing Ethnology Collections with KT Hajeian

KT Hajeian, Anthropology Collections Manager hosts a NHMLAC Discovery Talk!

SEM scan close up of ophiotrix brittle star

Happy Hour: Getting Really Small with Dr. Jody Martin

Join Dr. Jody Martin on a tour of "the very very small" - from tiny marine invertebrates to the heads of insects to snowflakes and pollen grains and more - to learn about the Museum's brand new electron microscope and how it will be used in research, education, and exhibits!

Video: Happy Hour - Collections Going Global with Dr. Trina Roberts

In Dr. Trina Roberts', Assoc. VP of Collections, presentation Collections Going Global, you'll hear about some of the ways the vast collection supports research and what NHMLAC is doing to share it worldwide, and how digital info is enhancing our reach and the role the museums play in global research.

NHMLAC Discovery Talk: Keeping the Connection

In this short video, Caroline Thrasher explains how she, and other Museum Educators, are helping visitors stay connected with science and culture at NHMLAC.

News & Press

City Nature Challenge Marks 10 Years of Bringing the World Together to Study Biodiversity

Organized by the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County, the community science initiative has grown from two cities to nearly 700 worldwide

Ninth annual community science event unites people with nature and each other as participants around the world document Earth’s biodiversity

A Lighthouse in the Gobi Desert

A new study quantifies the impact of the world’s great fossil sites on our understanding of evolutionary relationships between fossil groups and discovers the key to understanding lizard evolutionary history in the Gobi Desert.

Over 66,000 community scientists from 482 cities around the world document more than 2,570 rare, endangered, or threatened species in a four-day community science effort