Cyber Education Theater: Early STEM Education: Answer to a Strong National Defense & Global Competitive Advantage in a Cyber Dominated World

Description

Cybersecurity is being taken seriously in our schools and Young AFCEANs are taking an active role in improving the quality of STEM education from early grades through the university level. Through cross-organization support of programs such as CyberPatriot and state-run cyber initiatives, defensive cyber teams at all educational levels are actively learning and applying defensive cyber skills to thwart attacks by malicious data thieves and spies in realistic scenarios designed from real-life scenarios. Active integration of real-time threat analysis and intelligence not only serves to keep participants actively adjusting defenses, but also mirrors real world scenario development providing shared cyber defense use cases throughout military, industry, and commercial cyberwarfare applications. Education, practice, trials, and competition help to raise the baseline of the next generation cyber warfighter. The risk of not raising that baseline is real, and can be quantitatively measured against known threats and adversarial actions. Raising the cyber skills baseline starts in early education with the help of cyber competitions nationwide raising the bar for industry to follow.