Teacher Camp: GenCyber 2025
July 14-18th
Join the first cohort of Oregon middle grade teachers for a summer 2025 + professional development opportunity focused on cybersecurity. Our lively, hands-on program will enable you to:
- Promote critical thinking, information literacy, social responsibility and STEM careers in your classroom
- Enhance your curriculum with relevant content that encourages your students to practice safe and ethical communication, and demonstrate an understanding of digital citizenship and the responsibility of online behaviors
- Create lesson plans that connect your content standards to personal cybersecurity knowledge and career awareness activities
- Engage the young digital citizens in your classroom and challenge them to solve real-world cybersecurity-related problems and inspire them to consider further investigation
- Ensure that your students can safely navigate the online world and understand cybersecurity principles as they consume and create digital content and interact and communicate with others
- Strengthen your teaching practices with a variety of instructional strategies to introduce cybersecurity knowledge and skills
About the Program
This free professional development opportunity is part of GenCyber, a national program funded by the National Security Agency and the National Science Foundation to increase cybersecurity awareness among the nation’s youth. The Oregon camp is hosted by Oregon State University and the Oregon Cybersecurity Center of Excellence and will be led by Kendra Sue Finch, an energetic and experienced K-12 educator whose passions are instructional technology, curriculum mapping, and data-driven teaching strategies. Kendra Sue has led the GenCyber teacher program in Augusta, Georgia for many years and will bring her engaging curriculum to Oregon for this program.
Date, Time, and Location
The main camp session will be July 14th-18th, 2025 from 8:00 am until 4:30 pm and will be held at the OSU Portland Center, in the former Meier & Frank Building adjacent to Pioneer Square in downtown Portland. In addition, teachers will participate in pre- and post-camp sessions, to be held in Spring and Fall 2025. Please see the attached camp schedule for the dates and format for these events.
Additional Benefits of Participation
Aside from being a FREE PROGRAM, all teachers who are accepted into the GenCyber camp will enjoy the following benefits:
- Free meals throughout the entire camp including a light breakfast, lunch, snacks, and drinks
- Free classroom kits and materials
- A $1000 stipend distributed in two payments over six months
- Additional travel support for teachers from outside of the Portland metro area
- Certificate of attendance, noting Professional Development Units
- An opportunity to build community with other Oregon teachers interested in cybersecurity
Application Details
Eligibility
All Oregon 5th - 9th grade teachers and educators who are committed to incorporating cybersecurity concepts into their curriculum, are eligible to apply for the camp.
Process
To be considered for the program, please complete the application below by April 6. Teachers selected for the program will be notified by April 15. The application includes developing a short Google slide deck to introduce yourself and describe your interest in the program. Application deadline extended to April 6th!
**Please note: This camp is not yet confirmed, due to recent federal Executive Orders. Applicants will be notified as soon as the camp is confirmed.
More Information
For questions about the camp, please email Maria Wright.