The Catalina Island Marine Institute (CIMI) is a non-profit educational program run by Guided Discoveries on Santa Catalina Island, California

Santa Catalina Island, California

Santa Catalina Island, often called Catalina Island, or just Catalina, is a rocky island off the coast of the U.S. state of California. The island is long and across at its greatest width. The island is located about south-southwest of Los Angeles, California. The highest point on the island is...

.

It is the host to approximately 15,000 students a year, who visit it in school-organized trips and summer camps. Students at CIMI learn marine biology

Marine biology

Marine biology is the scientific study of organisms in the ocean or other marine or brackish bodies of water. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather...

 through activities such snorkeling, hiking, and squid dissections.

CIMI operates out of three facilities on Catalina Island: Toyon Bay

Toyon Bay

Toyon Bay is located on Catalina Island off the coast of California. Originally inhabited by a group of natives called Pipi Mari , and the Torqua, after whom a nearby spring is named. In the early 1900s, it was the site of a boys' boarding school. During World War II, the boys were evacuated and...

 (a private beach three miles northwest of Avalon

Avalon, California

Avalon, or Avalon Bay, is the only incorporated city on Santa Catalina Island of the California Channel Islands, and the southernmost city in Los Angeles County. Besides Avalon, the only other center of population on the island is the small unincorporated town of Two Harbors...

), Fox Landing, and Cherry Cove.