The Oregon Cybersecurity Center of Excellence had a summer of growth, innovation, experimentation, and improvement for 193 students and 9 teachers with NW Cyber Camp.
As a summer staple, OCCoE coordinates week-long cyber camps for middle and high school students throughout the state. These camps help youth explore key cybersecurity concepts and technologies, ethics, and career opportunities in the field with hands-on learning experiences from computer science teachers and engaging industry speakers. This year, all involved with NW Cyber Camp experienced Growth, Innovation, Experimentation, and Improvement:
Growth: Southern Oregon University was a first-time camp host, welcoming fifteen high school students to the first cohort. These Ashland campers played the role of a Network Analyst at SnowStorm, a fictional game design company, where they uncovered a scheme.
Longstanding camps at Portland Community College and Clackamas Community College also utilized the SnowStorm workplace mystery at the heart of their engaging curriculum.
Innovation: Cybersecurity faculty from Mt. Hood Community College delivered four days of “cyber detective” challenges to 19 youth, with highly gamified challenges, solving puzzles, cracking codes, and earning prizes.
Experimentation: Alongside their high school programs, Oregon State University and Oregon Tech both offered short programs for middle school students with unique takes on age-appropriate cybersecurity content for younger learners.
The University of Oregon’s weeklong high school camp featured online labs from Hack The Box™ and an in-class competition organized by SentinelOne, a cybersecurity workforce development partner.
Improvement: Instructors from around the state gathered in September to share lessons learned and identify best practices for future camps.
Overall, OCCoE will continue to evolve its K-12 programming to provide the most engaging and most practical experiences for future cybersecurity professionals through NW Cyber Camp and beyond. Learn more at nwcybercamp.org, and keep up with OCCoE at occoe.org to see how we are helping prepare Oregon's cybersecurity workforce for the many challenges our communities face, starting with K-12 and extending beyond to higher ed and professional programming.