Cybersecurity and Data Science Curriculum for Secondary Student Computing Programs

Abstract

Computing programs for secondary school students are rapidly becoming a staple at High Performance Computing (HPC) centers and Computer Science departments around the country. Developing curriculum that targets specific computing subfields with unmet needs remains a challenge. Here, we report on developments in the two week Summer Computing Academy (SCA) to focus on two such subfields. During the first week, ‘Computing for a Better Tomor-row: Data Sciences’, introduced students to real-life applications of big data processing. A variety of topics were covered, including genomics and bioinformatics, cloud computing, and machine learning. During the second week, ‘Camp Secure: Cybersecurity’, focused on issues related to principles of cybersecurity. Students were taught online safety, cryptography, and internet structure. The two weeks are unified by a common thread of Python programming. Modules from the SCA program may be implemented at other institutions with relative ease and promote cybertraining efforts nationwide.