Through a grant from the National Security Agency and the National Science Foundation, Lehigh Carbon Community College will offer two one-week cybersecurity summer camps for elementary, middle and high school teachers largely from Lehigh, Carbon and Schuylkill counties.

LCCC’s GenCyber Camp for teachers of grades 7-12 will be held June 21-25, and the camp for teachers of grades K-6 will be held July 12-16. Both are limited to 20 teachers. The camps will be offered as a three-credit special topics course for college credit and at no charge to the student.

Both camps will be online via Zoom.

The Lehigh Carbon GenCyber Teacher Camps will train teachers in the topics of computer components, computer networks, cryptography, cybersecurity, safe online behavior and cyber ethics. Camp participants will have hands-on experience and will also learn how to integrate these topics into their curricula at an age-appropriate level. Through the yearlong follow-up program, teachers will receive support from camp instructors on how to incorporate cybersecurity concepts into their courses.

Federal support for GenCyber camps across the country is in response to a need to develop cybersecurity awareness and teach sound cybersecurity fundamentals at the K-12 levels.

The goals of the GenCyber program are to increase interest in cybersecurity careers and diversity in the cybersecurity workforce, help students understand correct and safe online behavior, and improve teaching methods for delivering cybersecurity content in K-12 curricula. In 2018, LCCC earned the designation of Center of Academic Excellence Cyber Defense Two-Year Education by the National Security Agency and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Each teacher will be paid a $500 stipend to participate in their one-week camp.

Camp instructors will be:

• Susan Miner, LCCC’s professor of Computer Science and coordinator of the Cyber Center

• Sami Jo Eckhart, teacher of Business, Computers and Information Technology at Parkland High School.

• Carol Dickerson, Library Media Specialist at Parkland High School

• Robert Ritter, Adjunct Professor, CIS/Networking, LCCC

Teachers can apply for the camp online at www.lccc.edu/GenCyberCamp.