The student or class will watch a video clip about how to decode a Vigenère Square Cipher.Next students will be able to use the cipher to crack a secret message of their own (teacher provided messages in a hat (not inlcuded)).  One student chooses the word or phrase, the teacher puts the key (word) on the board, that same student will encrypt the message and send it to their partner.  The partner with use the same key word to return the text to plain text revealing the message and send their guess back to their partner. Teachers can edit the message to fit their needs and make adjustments as desired.  This is one mini lesson out of a series of five (part 2) and can be used alone, or with other lessons in the series. Vigenère Square Ciphefrom the past.  Next students will be able to use a Pigpen cipher to crack a secret message of their own.  Teachers can edit the message to fit their needs and make adjustments as desired.  This is one mini lesson out of a series of five. Vigenère Square Ciphe

The student or class will watch a video clip about ciphers, specifically Caesar Ciphers.  Next students will learn more about encryption and decryption through the use of "keys".  Lastly, students will be introduced to the career path choices as a Cyber-security analyst. This is one lesson out of a series of five, and can be used alone, or with the some or all of the other four lessons.

The Internet is open, so everything that happens on it can be seen unless it's protected. In modern countries, people are more worried about getting hacked than about any other crime. Why? Because every computer or phone on the Internet is regularly being tested for vulnerabilities by criminals, terrorists, or even state actors. If you're not careful, somebody could hack your device or accounts, and even steal your identity or your money.

Use digital citizenship lesson plans to address timely topics and prepare students to take ownership of their digital lives. Browse lessons by grade and topic below, or see an overview of the curriculum.

We've got more new lessons! Explore all lesson plans or check our lesson collections!

Use digital citizenship lesson plans to address timely topics and prepare students to take ownership of their digital lives. Browse lessons by grade and topic below, or see an overview of the curriculum.

We've got more new lessons! Explore all lesson plans or check our lesson collections!

Use digital citizenship lesson plans to address timely topics and prepare students to take ownership of their digital lives. Browse lessons by grade and topic below, or see an overview of the curriculum.

We've got more new lessons! Explore all lesson plans or check our lesson collections!

Use digital citizenship lesson plans to address timely topics and prepare students to take ownership of their digital lives. Browse lessons by grade and topic below, or see an overview of the curriculum.

Learn about what copyright does—and does not—cover in our Circulars. These guides provide detailed, up-to-date information to explain copyright to the public.

This breakout activity provides teachers and students an interactive way to demonstrate their learning about cryptography, code-breaking, and historic ciphers. Clues are provided, along with additional hints you can choose to provide to students so that students solve ciphers and learn what time their army is planning to raid the enemy camp.

In this lesson, students will learn about one of the most significant and successful spy rings in American History. They will also actually conduct some of the same techniques and demonstrate them to the rest of the class.

The lessons provided are presented by Scholastic and sponsored by Norton Lifelock.
All rights reserved by Scholastic.
Below is an overview of the three lessons provided.
The lessons do not coincide with one another.
The teacher can choose to use all three or select the best option for the classroom needs.

The PDF Links includes:
Lesson 1: Understanding Online Safety (45 minutes)
- Students will analyze text, citing evidence and summarizing central ideas. They will make inferences to create their own cybersecurity protection plan.
- Students will use the provided copy of #Cybersmarts student magazine to create their personalized online protection plan.

Lesson 2: Identifying Preventive Technologies (45 minutes + presentation time)
- Students will conduct research on preventive technologies built and used by professionals in the cybersecurity field (e.g., firewalls, ad blocker apps, antivirus software, voice recognition software, virtual private network (VPN), etc.).
- Students will then prepare a presentation - the given choices are a skit or interview. Presentation options can be easily adapted to best fit your classroom needs.
- Research planning/ gathering page is provided.

Lesson 3: Making Online Profiles More Secure (2 part lesson - 90 minutes total)
- Students will use analytical and reasoning skills to identify areas of vulnerability in an online profile and come up with strategies for how to make them more secure by applying information from a text.
- First, students will analyze their own personal profiles (if applicable). Then, they will analyze a provided “profile” to identify security holes. Last, discuss the answers and reasonings as a class.
*This lesson can be shortened to fit into one class period.
*(Optional) An extension idea is provided. It includes information from all lessons. Students will use what they have learned to create their own cybersecurity device.

This is a resource that describes the 5 Ws of Cyberbullying for students in grades K-8.

 Students describe the dynamics of online cruelty and how it affects all the people involved.  Students explain the difference between being a passive bystander versus a brave upstander in cyberbullying situations.      

This website serves as a clearinghouse of information concerning the ways adolescents use and misuse technology. It is intended to be a resource for parents, educators, mental health professionals, law enforcement officers, counselors, and others who work with youth (as well as for youth themselves!). Here you will find facts, figures, and detailed stories from those who have been directly impacted by online aggression. In addition, the site includes numerous resources to help you prevent and respond to cyberbullying incidents. All of the information on this site is informed by over fifteen years of research.

This lesson will be an introduction to cybersecurity and how to be safe online. 

This activity introduces cybersecurity concerns with technologies commonly used in the livestock industry  in the context of a "clue" style activity in which students act as private investigators looking for a lost racehorse. It can be facilitated in 90 minutes, either in a single session or 4-5 shorter sessions. This activity is part of the Agricultural Cyberbiosecurity Education Resource Collection that contains resources for formal and non-formal agricultural educators working with middle school aged youth. Published as Open Educational Resources, all resources are provided in durable (pdf) and customizable (MS Word) formats. They are hosted on  GoOpenVA in a unique resource collection, Ag Cybersecurity Virginia Tech, at https://goopenva.org/curated-collections/143 and on on Virginia Tech’s stable repository, VTechWorks at https://doi.org/10.21061/cyberbiosecurity

The student will use a table of personal data collected about plugged/unplugged activites and times of rest throughout the period of one week (7 days) to document screen times in comparison to active and restful breaks for a computer science integration and digital balance project.This Part 1 activity uses the data collected in a table to teach students how to copy and paste a table from Docs into Slides, and how to develop a Slideshow Presentation with tables (Part 1) and graphs (Part 2).  Students are given opportunities to collect and analyze data, to enter information into tables and graphs, to develop and share presentations in Slides, as well as summarize and draw conclusions about the data collection, graphing, and results as comparable to their peers, digital categories, or peer groups (Gamers vs YouTubers, Boys vs Girls, etc.).The goal/s of this unit is to help students realize the importance of living a digitally balanced life and to help students develop skills for creating and using digital tables and graphs with an introduction to data collection and analysis.

In this activity, participants plan and conduct a plant growth experiment while considering the role of data quality in automated systems in agriculture. The timing of the activity is highly dependent on the seed variety that you are growing and the level of familiarity that participants already have with basic plant science and scientific investigation concepts, but will likely take several weeks. This activity is part of the Agricultural Cyberbiosecurity Education Resource Collection that contains resources for formal and non-formal agricultural educators working with middle school aged youth. Published as Open Educational Resources, all resources are provided in durable (pdf) and customizable (MS Word) formats. They are hosted on  GoOpenVA in a unique resource collection, Ag Cybersecurity Virginia Tech, at https://goopenva.org/curated-collections/143 and on on Virginia Tech’s stable repository, VTechWorks at https://doi.org/10.21061/cyberbiosecurity

This lesson allows students to create a slideshow presentation about digital citizenship. The slideshow will focus on interacting with others online.This lesson involves the design process witht the creation of a slideshow. Students will choose from a list of Digital Citizen rules to focus on in their slideshow.Focus on concepts such as :Being Polite, Following Website Rules, Staying Positive, Being Respectful are to be included in the slideshow.Each slideshow should include a title slde and at least 4 additional slides.