What’s the Catch?

WWU students on cybersecurity outreach teams help middle-schoolers see the cost of free stuff online.
Story by Mikayla King

The classroom table was laden with Play-Doh, craft sticks, straws and masking tape, everything a middle-schooler could want to build the tallest tower in class and earn bragging rights over their friends.

And all the stuff was free—with just one catch. If students wanted the items, they needed to provide some personal information first.

The activity last year at Cedar Heights Middle School in Port Orchard was led by seniors Ryan Stege, Matthew Goit and Joe Hainje in order to teach kids about the importance of cybersecurity — and that while some things may look free, like game apps or social media, they come at the price of your personal information. Data given away with hardly a thought can then be sold and used for relatively innocuous reasons like ad targeting or for more nefarious purposes, such as identity fraud.

A Western student stands next to a table cluttered with items a student could use for a creative building project.
Ryan Stege, '24, prepares a collection of "free" building materials for a classroom of middle schoolers.

Each building block had its own unique set of questions, and the students were able to get as many or few materials as they wanted in exchange for their answers.

“One student was even telling me his account information for his Roblox account,” Goit says.

Then the WWU students talked with the middle-schoolers about privacy and the types of information that make them personally identifiable online.

“Students were not terribly happy when we talked about the amount of information they had given us for free,” Stege said. “I think a lot of them had never thought about what happens to that information once they give it to a business, so it was enlightening for many.”

Lessons like these are part of a growing push for secondary computer science education across the state, not just to prepare for jobs in the tech industry, but because tech literacy is a survival skill for everyone.

Computer science education was adopted as a teaching endorsement area in 2021 by the Washington State Professional Educator Standards Board, the first new endorsement in almost a decade. Western became one the first programs in the country to offer a BAE degree in computer science secondary education, with the program’s first cohort graduating later this year.

A Western student in the midst of a presentation in a middle school classroom.
Matthew Goit, '24, hopes the kids share with their families what they've learned about cybersecurity.

Western’s program combines classes in both computer science and secondary education, employing and creating emerging research on best practices in computer science education focused on engaging students from a young age. The curriculum is designed to prepare future educators on how to satisfy students’ curiosity about how computers and technology work and how that new-found knowledge can be leveraged in future careers.

Before they graduated in 2024, Stege, Goit and Hainje visited Cedar Heights Middle School as part of their capstone project, working with Angela Henderson, the Department of Computer Science’s cyber range academic liaison. Prior to their work with Henderson, the team took the Introduction to Computing Education course, which Henderson said provided the necessary foundation for their success.

“The class provided a theoretical and practical basis for approaching K-12 cybersecurity education outreach,” Henderson said. “This framework provided a common understanding of not only how to sequence activities for a cohesive lesson but also how to place the student at the center of the learning experience.”

The team performed teaching demos, received teaching tips, and planned and delivered the first outreach lesson as a part of the class.

"They are growing up in a world that is completely online."

“By working with a variety of ages, abilities and backgrounds, I think the K-12 outreach team may have a deeper appreciation for their own learning journeys,” Henderson said. “Certainly, they are better prepared to teach, train and present in their future careers.”

The team reached over 500 middle and high school students at local and regional schools over the 2023-24 school year, and more WWU student teams are continuing to visit area classrooms. For example, some of Henderson’s computing education students recently visited a video game design class at Sehome High School to talk about ways to prevent their games from being hacked by way of code injection.

Henderson also expects to work with more WWU students on cybersecurity outreach projects this winter and spring, sharing information about staying safe online, protecting their digital futures and exploring cybersecurity careers.

Cybersecurity is important for young people to know because they are already online and their information could already be at risk, said Stege, who, like Goit and Hainje, graduated in 2024.

Some of the middle-schoolers refused to share any information at all.

“They are growing up in a world that is completely online. Pretty much everything they know has been on a screen, and as they grow into having important data like credit cards, it's important for them to know just how at-risk they are,” said Stege, a cybersecurity graduate along with Goit. Haijne graduated with a degree in computer science.

“Secondly, they are probably the most tech-savvy people in their family, having grown up on this technology,” Stege continued. “This means they can be a point of education for their older family members or even their parents, taking what they learned today and having their family follow these same practices.”

Some of the middle-schoolers were already well on their way, refusing to share any information at all after learning about the day’s topic. Some even gave false information, an approach the team encouraged them to take into the real world.

“The idea was to get the students to think about ‘free’ services and games that trade access to their service or game for their personal information,” Goit said. “The lesson revolved around this thought process, why businesses wanted their personal information and ways businesses could use that information.”

Mikayla King, ’17, B.A., communications and journalism, is a communications consultant for Western’s College of Science and Engineering.