Natural Bridges State Marine Reserve

Laguna Creek is a 8.5-mile-long (13.7 km) south by southwest-flowing stream originating on Ben Lomond Mountain in the Santa Cruz County, California, United States. It culminates in a lagoon before reaching the Pacific Ocean about six miles northwest of Santa Cruz, California.

Wilder Ranch State Park is a California State Park on the Pacific Ocean coast north of Santa Cruz, California. The park was formerly a dairy ranch, and many of the ranch buildings have been restored for use as a museum. There are no campgrounds; a day-use parking lot provides access to the museum. Dogs are prohibited on the trails, but many trails allow bikes and/or horses. The long trails and ocean views make the area a favorite of hikers, equestrians and mountain bikers. Public beaches continue to the north in Coast Dairies State Park.

Rancho Refugio was a 12,147-acre (49.16 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Santa Cruz County, California given in 1839 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to María Candida, Jacinta, and María de los Angeles Castro. The grant extended along the Pacific coast from the western city limit of Santa Cruz to Laguna Creek, a border shared with Rancho Arroyo de la Laguna (not far from Davenport).

Rancho Arroyo de la Laguna was a 4,418-acre (17.88 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Santa Cruz County, California given in 1840 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to Gil Sanchez. The grant extended along the Pacific coast south-east from Rancho San Vicente and San Vicente Creek (which runs through present day Davenport) to Laguna Creek and Rancho Refugio.

Younger Lagoon Reserve is a 72-acre (28-hectare) University of California Natural Reserve System reserve on the northern shore of Monterey Bay in Santa Cruz County, California. The site is owned by the University of California and managed for teaching and research. It is adjacent to Long Marine Laboratory. The reserve encompasses a pocket beach, seasonal lagoon, wetlands, and coastal prairie on the western edge of the city of Santa Cruz. Other features include a sea stack, sea caves, and tidepools.

The University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) Coastal Science Campus consists of five main institutions: UCSC's Long Marine Laboratory, UCSC's Coastal Biology Building, the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, the Seymour Marine Discovery Center, and the California Marine Wildlife Veterinary Care and Research Center. The physical location of the campus is at the western end of Santa Cruz, California, roughly 10 minutes away from UCSC's main campus, and is located adjacent to the Younger Lagoon Reserve. Walking trails exist throughout the campus and are used by area residents for walking, biking, and bird watching.

Antonelli Pond is a century old, man-made pond on the west side of the city of Santa Cruz, California that now has ecological and cultural significance. The pond and surrounding riparian habitat are foraging and/or breeding grounds for many species including raptors, egrets, great blue heron, deer, raccoon, coyote, and several rodent species, including woodrats. Additionally, the pond has many paths for walking and spots for fishing that are enjoyed daily by local community residents.

Coast Dairies is a state park in Santa Cruz County, California, near the city of Davenport. It is managed as part of Wilder Ranch State Park, which is south of the park. The new public lands protect a seven-mile (11 km) stretch of coastline and about 7,000 acres (2,800 ha) of prime coastal lands. The beaches, which can be challenging to access, are tied together by the California Coastal Trail, which runs along the top of the bluff. The beaches are Sharktooth, Bonny Doon, Yellow Bank, Laguna Creek, and Panther, although many of these beaches also go by other local and historic names.The coastal lands on the ocean side of Highway 1 were donated to California State Parks in 2006, but remain undeveloped. The state park land spans a five-mile (8.0 km) segment of Highway 1 north and south of Davenport. In 2014, the Bureau of Land Management bought a 5,800 acres (2,300 ha) tract of land on the inland side of the highway adjacent to the coastal parcels. Some of the land east of the highway will continue to be used for farming, but most became the Cotoni-Coast Dairies unit of California Coastal National Monument.

The California Coastal National Monument is located along the entire coastline of the U.S. state of California. This monument ensures the protection of all islets, reefs and rock outcroppings along the coast of California within 12 nautical miles (22 km) of shore along the entire 840-mile (1,350 km) long coastline. Conservative estimates are for at least 20,000 such outcroppings. The monument was created by Bill Clinton via Presidential proclamation on January 11, 2000, with the authority in section two of the Antiquities Act of 1906. As of 2014, the monument has expanded to 2,272 acres (919 ha). The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages the monument, has developed gateways in cooperation with other agencies along the California coast to introduce the monument to the public. These include the Trinidad, Point Arena, Fort Bragg-Mendocino, Pigeon Point Lighthouse, Piedras Blancas State Marine Reserve and Marine Conservation Area, and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Although being the most-viewed national monument in California, people are usually unaware that the entire coastline is a national monument.

Moore Creek is a short ephemeral stream in Santa Cruz, California, that drains the lower UCSC campus and empties into the Pacific. On its course from the Moore Creek Preserve, it runs through Antonelli Pond by the UCSC Administration Building, then through a tidal wetland to the ocean at Natural Bridges State Beach.

Natural Bridges State Beach is a 65-acre (26 ha) California state park in Santa Cruz, California, in the United States. The park features a natural bridge across a section of the beach and a eucalyptus grove provides habitat for monarch butterflies. During monarch butterfly migration, Monarch Butterfly Natural Preserve has up to 150,000 monarch butterflies from October through early February.

Oakes College is a residential college at the University of California, Santa Cruz. It is on the southwestern corner of the campus, south of Rachel Carson College and east of the Family Student Housing complex.Oakes was founded in 1972 as College Seven by Professors Herman J. Blake and Ralph C. Guzmán. In 1968, the Black Liberation Front, a black power group, demanded an all-black college. Blake, UCSC's only African American faculty member at the time, along with Guzmán, one of the few Mexican-American faculty on campus, proposed a compromise in which College Seven's academic program would focus on ethnic studies, particularly the studies of minority groups in California. Though the term ethnic studies was dropped in the planning phases, the college has always stressed racial, ethnic and cultural diversity, along with the representation and support of students from historically disadvantaged groups.Oakes is perceived by some students as a "minority college", partly due to its roots in radical elements of the Civil Rights Movement. Comparative racial and ethnic statistics do show that Oakes' student body has slightly higher percentages of minorities than a number of other UCSC colleges and UCSC's student body as a whole. For example, 9.8% of Oakes's students are African American and 12.2% are Filipino American, compared with 2.7% and 4.5%, respectively, among UCSC's general student body.College Seven was renamed Oakes in 1975 after philanthropists Roscoe and Margaret Oakes, whose endowment contributed significantly to the founding of the college. Noted political activist Angela Davis, an Oakes affiliate, is a professor of history of consciousness, an unconventional program centering on the history of struggles for racial, economic and social justice and equality.