By: Violet Griffin

Cybersecurity NOVA Labs

Intro to Cybersecurity and Coding

This resource is a gamified series of lessons about cybersecurity, designed to be used for students in Grades 6-12. This game teaches students about safe practices online, specifically walking them through the process of creating a secure password, identifying scams, and coding challenges. The coding challenges involve sections that teach players about how data is protected through data mazes. This section requires players to put together code in order to navigate a robot through a maze to show how hackers can bypass this maze. You receive points based on being able to reach the end of the maze or the goal, and additional points for being able to do so by using the fewest number of coding blocks required. Sometimes you are also asked to pick up blocks or check for the location of items using “if/then” statements. The coding used is simple drag/drop block coding, similar to Scratch. This game can be used to teach the value of efficiency, repeating sequences, and how to use “if/then” statements in coding.

How to Use the Cybersecurity Simulation with Students

You can first show the introductory video to your students, provided on the homepage. The video explains what the purpose of the lab is, as well as why the internet can be an unsafe place. After showing the video, instruct students to enter the lab. They will take on the role of a social media company and have to make decisions that will best support the company, attempting to lose the least number of users as the company undergoes a series of cyber attacks. Success can be gauged by the number of users your company has at the end of the game. Students should play through the entire lab, and can learn about the value of cybersecurity as well as the step-by-step coding process.

Resource Information

Tags: Games, Gaming, Cybersecurity, Block Coding, Efficiency, If/Then, Repeating Sequences

URL link to resource: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/labs/lab/cyber/

Cost: Free