STEAM Newsletter Vol. 46

Fall Tricks and Treats

Governor Pritzker has proclaimed October as Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and it is no coincidence that it is a great time of year to give helpful tips on how to not get "tricked" while you focus on what a "treat" STEAM can be. Articles like Best Cybersecurity Lessons and Activities for K-12 Education | Tech & Learning (techlearning.com) and 4 tips for spotting deepfakes and other AI-generated images : Life Kit : NPR are great resources to inspire classroom activities and discussions. One cyber "treat" in an educator's bag may be PBS. Cybersecurity | NOVA Labs | PBS and PBS |Cyberchase can inspire young minds to explore cyber in our everyday lives and inspire a future STEAM leader.

CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association, is a leading provider of IT certifications. These certifications are highly valued in the hiring world. CompTIA.org has a somewhat dated, but still relevant article entitled Cybersecurity in Real Life vs. the Movies: The Good, The Bad and the Terrible. Perhaps this can inspire a great lesson on what is possible and what is not currently realistic.

The National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies (NICCS) resource webpage features an entire section dedicated to cybersecurity competitions and games: Cybersecurity Competitions & Games | NICCS (cisa.gov). NICCS explains that " cybersecurity competitions and games are a fun and interactive way to allow students and prospective/current cybersecurity professionals to showcase and sharpen their skillsets and capabilities. These hands-on activities and simulations provide meaningful educational experiences outside of the classroom."

School District Cybersecurity - Are you ready?

The unwritten curriculum for the school year is the work school districts must do to prevent and address cyber-attacks. This can seem a daunting task as lack of funding and expertise will always be an obstacle. Ed Tech magazine published an article in 2022 which describes a four phased approach of cybersecurity strategy that schools should consider implementing.

The federal Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) partners with educational institutions to improve school safety with numerous online resources. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced the application window for the K-12 Cybersecurity Pilot Program. Form 484 (Part 1) will be accepted from September 17 through November 1, 2024. This form is required for any school, library, or consortia of schools/libraries that would like to participate in the pilot. The FCC Cybersecurity Pilot Program will provide up to $200 million over three years to those selected as participants. For more information, visit www.fcc.gov/cybersecurity-pilot-program.

Another resource to explore is a free CyberGuide from the Learning Technology Center of Illinois which includes step-by-step guidance on how to improve cybersecurity. Contact the LTC for useful professional learning opportunities and services. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security hosts a "Cybersecurity" website with numerous resources.

Digital Inclusion Week

Recognition of Digital Inclusion Week scheduled October 7-11, 2024 provides an opportunity to stress the importance of digital equity. Learn more about resources related to the Connect Illinois Computer Equity Network, Illinois Broadband Equity + Inclusion, and Digital Equity + Inclusion Programming on the Connect Illinois website. Explore the Illinois Broadband Lab for broadband data, mapping, research, and publications.

Let off some STEAM with these fun activities!

Grade K - 4

Happy Hooligans | Salt and Ice Experiment for Kids - Melting Halloween Hands Activity

Grade 5 - 8

National Inventors Hall of Fame® | STEM Activity: Create Your Own Spacepack

Grade 9 - 12

DiscoverE | Space Fitness

FCC to Open Funding for Cybersecurity in K-12, Libraries | Government Technology

"In an important step toward federal funding for much-needed school cybersecurity tools and services, the application window for the three-year $200 million Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program is set to open Sept. 17.

Approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in June, the program's short-term goal is to fund cybersecurity measures for a select group of K-12 schools and libraries most in need. Long term, the aim is to gather data on the resources necessary to improve cybersecurity in schools and libraries throughout the United States.

Leaders of education organizations such as the nonprofit Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition (SHLB) said the hope is the FCC will use the pilot data to add appropriate cybersecurity funding to its E-rate program. E-rate currently helps schools and libraries pay for telecommunications and Internet services but does not fund cybersecurity measures beyond a basic firewall."

Education sector facing unplanned cyber expenses, finds Netwrix | Security Info Watch

"Netwrix, a vendor that delivers effective and accessible cybersecurity, surveyed 1,309 IT and security professionals globally and today released findings for the education sector based on the data collected.

It reveals that 77% of organizations in the education sector spotted a cyberattack on their infrastructure within the last 12 months, up from 69% in 2023. The most common attack vectors were similar to those among other industries: Phishing, user account compromise, and ransomware or other malware attacks.

In the education sector, almost half (47%) of organizations faced unplanned expenses to fix security gaps because of a security incident. Moreover, one in seven of those organizations incurred compliance fines, and each tenth reported changes in senior leadership and lawsuits.

"An incident can reveal security gaps such as excessive admin privileges, dormant accounts, weak or unchanged passwords, default passwords or configurations, and unpatched systems due to negligence or lack of knowledge. Fixing a gap might not immediately require spending additional money but will definitely require time from the IT security team. In other words, addressing the root cause of a security incident results in additional investment, in either money or effort, or both," says Dirk Schrader, VP of Security Research and Field CISO EMEA at Netwrix."

Scientific innovation puts the future in focus | Argonne National Laboratory

"When you think of the future, what do you see? Flying cars and robots? 3D-printed organs and AI personal assistants? The technological wonderland we are promised in cartoons, comic books and movies might not be as far away as you think.

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory is home to scientific visionaries who are imagining the systems and technologies that will improve our lives over the course of the rest of this century and beyond. Their current research in fields that include artificial intelligence, energy storage, quantum and synthetic biology is opening up new vistas of opportunity.

Robots? Yes, please!

"We're really just beginning to explore the human-technology frontier," said Argonne Deputy Laboratory Director for Science and Technology Sean L. Jones. ​"We're taking robots and AI out of the laboratory and into our homes, where they can be not just a tool but a true assistant. The future does really look like AI-assisted living, where AI is something that touches every part of your life, and every part of science, as a positive reality."

The AI assistants who may soon be organizing our lives are based on foundation models. These models consist of trillions of pieces of information from which the model creates relationships and makes predictions for a logical response. Depending on what information you give the model, this response could be telling a joke or predicting the next COVID variant."

AI Project Aims to Transform Art Preservation with Color Reconstruction | ARTnews

"Just over 130 years ago, Norwegian painter Edvard Munch went on a fateful evening walk that changed the course of art forever.

"The Sun was setting. The clouds turned the color red like blood," Munch wrote in one of his notebooks. "I painted this image, painted the clouds like real blood. The colors screamed."

Thus, The Scream (1893) was born.

Time and circumstance have stifled the shrieks of Munch's famed image: There are four versions of The Scream, two paintings and two pastel drawings; the colors in all of them have faded or degraded after more than a century of exposure to varying light and humidity. And the theft of the 1910 version in 2004 guaranteed an unfortunate acceleration of that process for at least the one copy: recovered in 2006, it was found to have new moisture damage on the lower-left side. Munch's lurid colors-the blood reds and deep blues as he saw them himself-seemed more irretrievable for the modern viewer than ever."

How to Teach Kids the Basics of Cybersecurity | Yahoo Tech

"When I attended public school in the late 90s and early 00s, I learned how to perform now-archaic tasks such as writing in cursive, balancing a checkbook, and navigating the Dewey Decimal System. I'm pretty sure my compatriots from Gen Z and Alpha have never learned dinner-party etiquette during a home economics class, and no one born after, say, 1998 knows the fear that comes with approaching a whirring circular saw during shop class. The public school curriculum in the United States has evolved over the decades, but it needs to change faster to help keep everyone safe in the digital age.

Help Wanted: Cybersecurity Educators

Cybersecurity education just isn't being taught widely in the United States, despite efforts to create change at the federal level in recent years. For example, in a 2020 survey of educators and school officials, more than half said their schools did not offer cybersecurity education (opens PDF download). The survey, which is by cyber.org, a K-12 cyber education platform funded partly by the US government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, also found that only about a third (37%) of elementary and middle schools infused cybersecurity education into their curriculums. That's unacceptable, especially since research shows many children start using online devices before they're five years old."