Abstract:

Teaching K-12 students about cybersecurity has become very important today because children are facing more and more cyber threats. Since nowadays technology is integrated into everyday life, students must be provided with necessary knowledge and skills for their own protection online. Therefore, the interest in cybersecurity education K-12 curricula is constantly increasing.

Some researchers are suggesting a new approach to cybersecurity education, putting more focus on training teachers how to teach cybersecurity and promote it as a career path. Others present a brief, usually one or two-week program, that uses hands-on activities to increase the student's efficiency in cybersecurity and problem-solving skills. However, most research on cybersecurity education are focused on evaluating students’ knowledge, rather than investigating the skills needed to implement cybersecurity actions. Taking into consideration that today’s K-12 students may have high expectations, but also reduced learning time span, obviously certain changes in current approaches of teaching and learning must be implemented promptly. The biggest challenge of designing an effective learning environment is to understand the importance of students' perceptions of cybersecurity risks and to integrate cybersecurity related content into practical activities.

Our research group has experience in teaching both K-12 teachers and students through organization and implementation of various activities such as workshops on Artificial Intelligence, mobile applications development, and other workshops in the field of informatics. The purpose of these activities is to supplement official informatics curricula and to create a better connection between teachers and students as they communicate in a less formal environment. Hence, in this paper we introduce a new proposal for the Cybersecurity Education K-12 Curriculum based on contemporary needs and available research. The proposed curriculum includes both teacher and student aspects of Cybersecurity Education with descriptions of hands-on activities.

Keywords:

Cybersecurity, K-12, curriculum, teaching, education.