In a national first, South Australian students are developing cyber awareness by working in teams inside a mobile 'escape room' developed in conjunction with global technology companies.
The cyber escape room, which is the first educational experience of its kind in Australia, is starting a national tour teaching how to build cyber security skills in the face of increased cyber threats.
This innovative program was demonstrated to the Minister for Education, Training and Skills Blair Boyer today, at Woodville High School.
The Cyber Escape Experience is designed to foster interest in STEM, increasing South Australia's pool of young people pursuing careers in key technical areas such as defence and cyber security – which is exactly what we need for the large projects coming online in this state over the next few years.
Inside the 12m-long shipping container 'escape room', teams of students will work together to solve interactive puzzles, find clues, and accomplish cyber-related objectives to 'escape' the unique learning experience being supported by technology businesses, CGI, and cyber security partner, Palo Alto Networks.
In the sessions – which run for 30-60 minutes – up to six students at a time learn about cyber risks like identifying phishing campaigns, establishing good password management practices and the importance of keeping sensitive information secure.
The state-of-the-art Cyber Safety Experience is being hosted at Woodville High School before its tour of Australia begins in March.
Woodville High School has been a leader in cyber skills including delivering a Cert III in cybersafety in conjunction with TafeSA next year. Flinders University have also entered into an agreement with to guarantee Woodville High School students entry, without an ATAR, into all their IT degrees if they complete the Certificate III IT (Cybersecurity) TAFESA course in 2026.
The escape room project follows on from cyber safety training for Department for Education staff provided last year and will be part of an increasing focus on building cyber security and technology skills across education for both students and staff.
With cyber threats on the rise globally, the department has established a partnership with global provider Fortinet to roll out free training for corporate and public school
staff.
Teachers and other staff have had access to it since Term 3 last year, with more than 600 completing the modules in the first two months, and enrolments doubling each week since then. The department will look to explore offering it to students in
2025.
State governments and education sectors accounted for almost 20 per cent of cyber incidents reported in 2022-23 to the Federal Government's Australian Cyber Security Centre. A key contributor was human error, or people falling for sophisticated scams.
As put by Blair Boyer
The Malinauskas Labor Government is committed to investing in young people and building the pathways to cater for huge projects we have coming online in this state in the next few years – including the AUKUS project where we will need young people skilled in cyber security.
We are building new technical colleges specifically with those demands in mind, and offering new Flexible Industry Programs (FIPs) within schools to support students, key industries and employers.
Additionally, leveraging the growing popularity of escape rooms is an innovative way to make sure our kids are learning about cyber safety in an engaging way that lets them have fun.
Cyber threats are on the rise, and we need to be educating South Australia's next generation of experts to handle them. That starts now.
As put by Woodville High School Principal Anna Mirasgentis
This escape room presents an exciting opportunity for our students and aligns with our school's strategic direction. At Woodville High School we are shifting to focus not just on what students know, but on what they can do and who they can be.
After looking at what our students were doing after they left school, we identified that a significant number were choosing to study IT, so we have entered a partnership with TAFESA to offer a Certificate III in Information Technology with a Cybersecurity Pathway.
This Cyber Security escape room is a perfect opportunity for our current Year 9 and 10 students in particular, to experience and understand the power and impact of AI personally and its impact on global security.
