Carnegie Mellon to host NSA GenCyber experience for local high school teachers

The picoCTF for NSA GenCyber Teacher Program by Carnegie Mellon University is designed for local tri-state area high school computer science teachers in grades 10 through 12. The program will show teachers how to incorporate online cybersecurity Capture-The-Flag (CTF) problems and competitions into the classroom, helping students build cybersecurity knowledge and skills. This effort also aims to increase students' interest in cyber-related careers.

The 2023 camp will take place in person at Carnegie Mellon's Pittsburgh Campus from Monday, June 26th, through Friday, June 30th. Space is limited, so organizers encourage interested teachers to sign up to ensure their spot in the program.

According to picoCTF's website, the program offers the following:

• Free education opportunities on cybersecurity knowledge and skills that are typically taught at Bachelor's/Master's level, e.g., cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks and their defenses, thus making participants more likely to feel comfortable using our content in their classrooms
• Demonstrations on how all six GenCyber Cybersecurity Concepts and cyber ethics manifest in the design of secure computer systems, the practice of real-world cybersecurity professionals, and the cyber-computing experience in our everyday lives
• An opportunity to collaborate with a K–12 Pedagogical expert and teachers to identify a set of curriculum integration points where the knowledge referenced above can be synergistically inserted into the existing high-school computer science curriculums
• Ability to customize a set of demonstration lesson plans on how to use CTF problems and competitions to excite students to learn cybersecurity knowledge and skills and to increase their interest in cybersecurity careers

In addition to the in-person camp, picoCTF offers online lectures on introductory-level cybersecurity principles that leverage picoCTF's educational content. These lectures are recorded and posted on picoCTF's YouTube channel.

For more information about the picoCTF for GenCyber Teacher Program by Carnegie Mellon University, please email Megan Kearns at mkearns1@cmu.edu.