Canyon Springs and Valley View Students Training forNational Youth Cyber Defense Competition

Someone somewhere hacked into federal government computers recently and stole sensitive personal and employment information about millions of federal employees. Teachers Donna Woods (CSHS) and Chris Lorenz (VVHS) have teamed up this year to create the Collaborative CyberPatriot Training Academy and take advantage of curriculum provided by the Air Force Association to teach students about such techy topics as firewalls, encryption and “command line monitoring.” The training is offered to students after regular school hours. “Our students are absolutely amazing!” said Woods. “We offered the opportunity and they ran with it.” “Students have been eager to dedicate numerous after-school hours in the Cyber Training Academy,” added Lorenz. “Defending against cyber espionage and hacking is a growth industry, so our training is cutting-edge.” CyberPatriot is the National Youth Cyber Education Program created by the Air Force Association to inspire high school and middle school students toward careers in cyber security or other science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Canyon Springs and Valley View students are also preparing for MVUSD’s first participation in next month’s annual National Youth Cyber Defense Competition, involving finding and fixing various computer security vulnerabilities. Students compete in a series of online rounds for a chance to earn an all-expenses-paid trip to the in-person CyberPatriot National Finals Competition in Baltimore in the spring. There, students have the opportunity to win scholarships and network with industry leaders. Additionally, students participating in CyberPatriot receive automatic admission to Cal State San Bernardino's Cyber Security and Information Technology degree program, through which they have access to paid internships within federal, public and private cyber-security organizations.