Mystic ― The U.S. Department of Justice has awarded a $2 million grant to Mystic Aquarium to fund a decade-old program that serves under-resourced communities through community youth organizations.

“It’s a real jewel for us, and honestly it gives us a lot of pride and joy to have developed the really trusted relationships with all of these youth-serving organizations around the country. It’s really just an amazing program,” said Katie Cubina, senior vice president of Mission Programs at the aquarium, earlier this month.

The Science, Technology, Engineering and Math program seeks to provide children in underprivileged communities with an engaging, conservation-based, after-school program that supports their education, future careers and social-emotional learning.

“It’s really about taking the positive, preventative approach and providing some really appreciated goods and services to underserved communities and populations,” said Cubina.

The grant for the STEM Mentoring Program, which serves communities in Connecticut and nationwide through the aquarium’s network of partner community organizations, is funded through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

“From the Department of Justice’s standpoint, they are looking at early intervention programs that set kids on a really positive academic path and give them some extra enrichment and support so that they are successful and really want to stay in school,” Cubina said.

Partners for the weekly program include community organizations that focus on youth, like Boys and Girls Clubs, which handle local recruitment and screening of all mentors.

The grant will support up to 60 program sites nationwide, and locally in cities like Stamford and Bridgeport. Additionally, it covers staff costs, training, all supplies required to run the program from project materials and curriculum to note pads and rubber bands ― and internet-based training that can be used to support the program, among other costs.

In addition to an educational component which focuses on academic achievement for the up to 1,000 six to 10-year-old participants, the program also impacts social development through mentoring relationships and introduces students to STEM concepts and careers.

“Everything is very hands-on,” Cubina said, adding, “it also has a real relevancy to kids and their own lives, and we build into this a sense of environmental ethos and environmental stewardship in a way that benefits their own communities.”

In one module, the children learn about energy and renewable energy and build a solar powered fan. In another, they learn about endangered species, like the endangered African penguins at the aquarium, and birds in their own communities before building a birdfeeder.

“Everything we do, we try to make it so it’s relatable and usable for a kid anywhere ― a kid in the country or rural community, a kid in the city, in an asphalt community,” she said.

Cubina noted that the program, which she estimates has reached 15,000 young people to date, must be fun and engaging, because, if it is not, children may opt for something else.

Through a related Leadership Academy program, the 12-to-17-year-old “near-peer” mentors who, alongside adult mentors, help deliver the curriculum, have an opportunity to spend a week in Mystic during the summer attending workshops, building skills, and learning to implement the aquarium’s Environmental Stewardship Initiative in which mentees design and implement conservation-based projects in their home communities.

Previous environmental stewardship projects have included creating butterfly gardens, starting recycling programs and restoring wetlands, among many others.

The aquarium applies for the highly competitive, multi-state mentoring grant each year. Though it is not always selected, the aquarium has managed to sustain the program for the last ten years through five DOJ grants it has received, ranging between $1.75 million and $3 million, as well as other funding sources.