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Outhack the Hackers
Estimated Time: Ten 45-minute class periods
Project Summary: Students learn some of the history about cybersecurity and research cybersecurity topics. They then create a website, game, interactive presentation, or brochure to educate younger students about cybersecurity and how to keep themselves safe from hackers and others who may be trying to scam them.
Driving Question (Teacher Guided, Student Constructed): How can we educate young students about how to keep themselves safe from hackers?
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Good news everyone who is following these posts, Mike Wood (the author) has just updated the PBL plan with some new resources for easier implementation.
Do you think the Law and Public Safety Career cluster be tied into this PBL as well?
While the focus and milestones of this PBL is careers in coding to address hacking, the flip side is that hackers are subject to criminal charges. So yes, I do think careers in the Law and Public Safety Career cluster could be explored in this PBL.
I use NOVA PBS Cybersecurity Lab. Students only have to login if you want them to save their progress.
Our school is not letting us use this website: https://go.cyberstart.com/ – they now require students to login to complete the challenges. What is an alternative activity for day 1?
Yes, this is something that happened in November or December. For right now, I don’t have a good workaround. My district won’t allow students to login either unless we do a lot of vetting and contacting the company which I haven’t done yet.
For now, I may be focusing on the encryption side of things and the pringles activity I referenced in a comment below. Kids really liked the cybergo stuff, so too bad it’s hard to access. I will update if I find a good replacement.
Here’s another fun activity that goes with this PBL … use a can of pringles to simulate the German Enigma machine used during WWII to encrypt secret messages.
https://cyber.org/enigma
We’ve found that you can print the template at 88% and use it on soda cans as well if that’s easier on the budget.
Mike where would you add this resource? Under Milestone 2?
Here is a google slides presentation I use when doing the Pringles activity. It has several video clips highlighting how Enigma worked and briefly how Alan Turing was able to crack the German code.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vHQlLSv7gnUU2iWGQaC5Eh3SeSmmHVlWVM_VTbzzvMA/copy
Mike
I am currently using this PBL in my CCA class. Is cyberbullying not part of cyber security? What are your thoughts?
Cyberbullying is certainly and issue of concern, but as this is a career awareness/exploration course, the PBL has been developed to explore cybersecurity careers. If the driving question was focused on “How could careers in cybersecurity track and remove cyberbullying posts in social media?” you might be able to explore this career area and using cyberbullying as the content to raise awareness about this issue.