A rural summer camp for teaching cultural awareness and language to Cherokee teens might not seem like the most obvious place to bring up cybercrime.
But Tywania Griffin traveled from Tulsa to the heart of the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah recently to ask: Had the students ever received texts about jobs they’d never applied for? Or been sent messages saying they owed toll fines when they couldn’t even drive? Had they ever lost money in a phishing scam?
Well, yes, they had.
Several students shared stories of suspicious texts; one even paid a “fine” that turned out to be fraud.
“Every student touches a device, so we have to prepare them to be ready for the world of cyber,” said Griffin, director of educational programming for The University of Tulsa’s Oklahoma Cyber Innovation Institute.
Through summer camps, classroom visits and teacher training, OCII is on a mission to bring cyber education to students in all 77 Oklahoma counties. The outreach is part of a larger UTulsa effort to help develop the cyber experts of the future.
“Cybersecurity isn’t just a tech issue — it’s a workforce issue, an education issue and a community issue,” explained OCII Executive Director David Keely. “Our mission at OCII is to ensure that every student in Oklahoma, from large cities to rural and tribal communities, has the opportunity to learn about digital safety and explore careers in cyber. This is about preparing the next generation to thrive in a connected world.”
Griffin and instructor Tenille Smith arrived at Camp Cherokee with a bank of 30 laptops, their own Wi-Fi, lessons on creating hacker-proof passwords and online games about cybersecurity.
The camp, held this year at Sequoyah High School, focused primarily on teaching about 200 Cherokee teens culture and language, said Aaron Emberton, deputy executive director for the tribe’s education services. So where does cybersecurity training fit in?
“In education, your main goal is to keep your students safe,” Emberton said. “Now we’re looking at safety online, the safety of keeping your personal data secure. Even at this age, it’s very important to understand that they can be taken advantage of on an online platform.”
Introducing students to careers in cybersecurity offers another potential benefit for the tribe, he says. He points out the window to a nearby construction site where a $65 million capital school improvement project is underway. “A lot of that’s going to be technology. We need to be safe. We need to be secure. It takes a lot of folks with a lot of training,” Emberton said.
Providing students with cyber education can be challenging for many school districts and communities. Urban schools may have more access to technology but face time constraints in the curriculum. Broadband access and a shortage of cybersecurity-trained educators can be a challenge for rural schools. Tribal nations may have distinct cultural and educational priorities to take into consideration.
“OCII’s approach is to tailor resources and outreach to meet these diverse needs,” said Ryan McPherson, the institute’s operations manager.
To that end, OCII recently began offering high school teachers access to a free cyber curriculum that aligns with educational standards. “They can open it up and say, ‘This is something that I could teach today and give my students cybersecurity knowledge immediately,’” Griffin said. “It doesn’t matter what the topic is. It could be any topic, from math to PE. There’s cybersecurity in everything that we do.”
Interested teachers can schedule a time with an OCII graduate assistant to discuss the curriculum and request more information.
OCII was created thanks to $12 million from the American Rescue Plan Act through the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology with matching funds from the George Kaiser Family Foundation.
The University of Tulsa is a national leader in cybersecurity education and research. The university houses the country’s first dedicated academic department in cyber offering bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees.
UTulsa also is the first institution in the state to offer a fully functional cyber range to outside organizations. The OCII Cyber Range is a virtual environment that allows businesses and other entities to evaluate their vulnerabilities and test ways of defending themselves from cyberattacks.