Running under the new name of STEM Mentoring RI, the organization – previously known as STEM Advantage – has announced its 2023 programs for youth. With the return of Energy Engineers in the spring and the World of Water and Environmental Stewardship in the summer, Ocean Exploration Adventures will be the latest addition for kids to engage in come the fall.

“It’s [Ocean Exploration Adventures] going to be a deeper dive into looking at our ocean habitat,” said Statewide STEM Advantage Coordinator Caitlyn Blankenship.

In the new program, youth will participate in hands-on activities and participate in project-based learning experiences that include real-life scenarios related to Mystic Aquarium’s Animal Rescue Team and the impacts of climate change. Ocean Exploration Adventures was piloted earlier this year with eighth graders at Hugh B. Bain Middle School and Park View Middle School through grant funding. In the program’s activity guide, kids learn about the past, present and future of ocean exploration along with creatures of the deep sea, ocean exploration tools and what it's like to share a fishery.

STEM Mentoring RI seeks to “provide equitable STEM afterschool and out-of-school time pathway opportunities for K-12th grade youth through collaboration, youth voice and peer mentoring.” At Cranston West on Dec. 14, in addition to sharing program offerings, Blankenship and Mystic Aquarium partners announced the program has rebranded and will change its main Rhode Island based partner from Cranston Public Schools to its new fiscal agent Southern RI Conservation District.

“We’re really excited that we’re able to step in for the next couple of years and host the statewide coordinator for this great program and help it grow,” said Gina Fuller from Southern Conservation District.

Southern RI Conservation District’s mission is to “promote and achieve a healthy environment and sustainable use of natural resources for the people of Kent and Washington Counties and the State of Rhode Island, now and for the future, by coordinating partners to provide technical, educational and financial resources.”

Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships for Mission Programs at Mystic Aquarium Ayana Melvan said STEM Mentoring RI is thankful that Cranston housed the program for so long and that they are “passing the baton to another partner to house it, but will remain great partners.”

Over the last several years, Cranston Public Schools embarked on the partnership with STEM Mentoring RI and worked closely with Blankenship to design and grow programs for students. In the beginning, they started with providing after school programming at two elementary schools. Based on feedback from students and teachers, the programs’ waitlists grew – causing the addition of two more schools and a six-week summer program. In 2022, STEM Mentoring RI served 575 youth and in 2021 served 445 individuals across the state. The programs’ demographics are 35 percent white, 20 percent Hispanic, 17 percent multiracial, 13 percent Indigenous, 13 percent Black and seven percent Asian; Seventy-five percent of these youth qualify for free-reduced price lunch. The STEM Mentoring RI model pairs youth mentees ages six to 10 with either an adult or near peer-aged mentor in small group sessions. Funding for the program currently comes from the Rhode Island Foundation and some supplemental funding from other community partners.

While STEM Mentoring RI’s overarching goal for the program has not changed from STEM Advantage, the FY2023 plan is to secure commitments for funding to sustain the program for FY2024 and beyond; this work includes developing strategic partnerships at the state, school district, philanthropic and municipality levels. The organization is looking to invest $25k into its annual site fund, $10k into enrichment programs and $5k into environmental stewardship programs.

Katie Cubina, Acting President and CEO of Mystic Aquarium, spoke at the Dec. 14 event – adding that Mystic Aquarium’s mission is to inspire people to care for and protect the ocean and planet through conservation, education and research. The aquarium has a strong focus on youth development which is what brought her to work with Melvan over a decade ago on STEM Mentoring RI. Since 2011, the aquarium has served more than 12,000 youth and 3,000 mentors in 80 sites in 31 states and territories and wants to grow initiatives in Rhode Island. Cubina said there’s been a resurgence in investing in STEM careers around Rhode Island.

“We need to make an equal investment in the young people in our communities to make sure that they’re interested in these careers, see themselves in these careers and that there’s a pathway for them to enter into the STEM workforce should they decide to enter into those fields,” said Cubina.

Cubina said the aquarium will see a boom in offshore wind development in the Rhode Island region over the next 10 to 20 years to reach state goals for carbon reduction and neutrality.

“It’s an exciting time to be a young person with all of these versioning careers in our region for good, well paying jobs in a variety of different academic levels,” Cubina said.

The Dec. 14 event also featured presentations from different STEM Mentoring RI program sites throughout the state and demonstrations of the activities students engaged in. There were also community partners such as Avangrid, which deals with offshore wind and has held presentations for Cranston students.

Moving into the New Year, Blankenship described the returning programs that kids can participate in. Energy Engineers, which launched last year, will teach kids about renewable energy and how it relates to careers in Rhode Island. Additionally, World of Water and Environmental Stewardship will focus on youth adopting aquatic and land sites to practice and reinforce environment stewardship through community service projects, water quality monitoring and traditional ecological monitoring.