Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Creating innovative and exciting career pathways is critical to ensuring kids stay engaged and motivated at school while learning about opportunities available to them — and we need to start young. One way educators can do that is by integrating cybersecurity into the K-12 curriculum and emphasizing that even students at the elementary levels can learn it.
Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., understands this, and I recently met with her in Washington, D.C., while attending Cyber.org’s Cyber Education Discovery Forum.
In my classroom in North Las Vegas, I have integrated cybersecurity curriculum into my lessons plans with help from Cyber.org, a cybersecurity workforce development organization that targets K-12 students with cyber career awareness, curricular resources and teacher professional development within the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The impact on my students has been astonishing. Hundreds have been exposed to quality, hands-on curriculum that excites them about careers in cybersecurity. Our student Cyberpatriot teams ranked in the top five among Nevada middle schools.
I’ve witnessed the positive impacts of exposing my students to cybersecurity. By helping them explore career paths in cybersecurity, the career — and in some cases the life — trajectory of some of students most in need of support has changed for the better.
Thank you to Rosen and
Cyber.org for their efforts to help educators train and prepare the next generation of cybersecurity professionals. Ensuring that every student is cyber literate is only possible by the dedication of educators and the support of federal and industry partners.
The writer is a teacher at Jim Bridger Middle School.