Younger Lagoon Reserve

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.

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.

Pacific Collegiate School is a grades 7-12 charter school located on the westside of Santa Cruz, California. Currently, the number of students is about 514. The school mascot is the Puma, and the school colors are white, black and silver. According to Newsweek, in 2007 Pacific Collegiate was among the top 22 "elite public schools" in the United States. PCS was named the #2 high school overall in the nation and the #1 charter school in the nation in the December 10, 2007, issue of U.S. News & World Report. The 2009 ranking places it as the #3 high school overall.

The Home of Peace Cemetery (also called Beit Shalom) is a Jewish cemetery in Santa Cruz, California. Consecrated in 1877 by the Hebrew Benevolent Society, it is located on Meder Street – named after Moses Meder, a Mormon businessman who gifted the land to the Society – on the west side of Santa Cruz, near the University of California, Santa Cruz. Temple Beth-El, the local synagogue in Santa Cruz, operates the cemetery. It is the oldest Jewish cemetery in Santa Cruz County, California.

The Grateful Dead Archive is an archive of materials related to music from The Grateful Dead. The archive was officially donated in April 2008, by band members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart.The Archive contains material related to the individual members, its live performances, productions, and business. The materials span a three-decade career that ran from 1965 to 1995 and included numerous albums and thousands of live performances.

The Cowell Lime Works, in Santa Cruz, California, was a manufacturing complex that quarried limestone, produced lime and other limestone products, and manufactured wood barrels for transporting the finished lime. Part of its area is preserved as the Cowell Lime Works Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. In addition to the four lime kilns, cooperage and other features relating to lime manufacture, the Historic District also includes other structures associated with the Cowell Ranch, including barns, a blacksmith shop, ranch house, cook house and workers' cabins. The 32-acre (130,000 m2) Historic District is located within the University of California, Santa Cruz campus, to either side of the main campus entrance. The site gets its name from the Cowell family, which owned and operated the lime works, quarries, ranch and large tracts of surrounding timber lands. Industrialist Henry Cowell acquired the ranch and the lime works in the late 19th century. He and his descendants remained owners of the ranch until the death of S. H. (Harry) Cowell, youngest of Henry's five children and last surviving member of the family, in 1955. Cowell's vast estate went to the S. H. Cowell Foundation, still in existence today. The Foundation sold part of the ranch property to the University of California for the creation of the new UC Santa Cruz campus, which opened in 1965. Several of the original ranch buildings have been renovated into university offices. The university's Women's Center is hosted at the Cardiff House, formerly the residence of ranch manager George H. Cardiff.The Cowell Lime Works is just one of many former lime-making sites scattered around north-western Santa Cruz County. Other sites featuring old lime kilns and quarries can be seen in the Fall Creek Unit of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, Wilder Ranch State Park and Pogonip (a Santa Cruz greenbelt area).

The Arboretum & Botanic Garden at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is located on the campus of the University of California, Santa Cruz, in the United States.

Neary Lagoon is a small lagoon located in the Lower Westside neighborhood of Santa Cruz, California. The lagoon is protected within Neary Lagoon Park, which serves as both a municipal park and wildlife refuge for migratory birds. The Santa Cruz Water Treatment Plant abuts the southwestern edge of the lagoon.

Lighthouse Field State Beach is a protected beach in the state park system of California, United States. It is located in the city of Santa Cruz at the north end of Monterey Bay. The beach overlooks the Steamer Lane surfing hotspot. It also contains the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum, housed in a 1967 lighthouse. The 38-acre (15 ha) site was established in 1978.

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.