Nicholas Pickering works on coding as part of the STEM Club’s CyberPatriot competition.
Broadalbin-Perth Central School District is building on its STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) initiatives this year by registering a team of students to participate in CyberPatriot’s National Youth Cyber Defense Competition.
Six high school STEM Club members, who were chosen through an application process, are competing online against other high school teams across the country, proofing computer code to make it secure from a team of professional hackers. Seniors Nicholas Pickering and Cameron Monks, junior Noah McDonald, sophomore Brooke McClarren and freshman Jared Eipp, have completed a practice round and two rounds of competition between October and December. The state-level round will take place at the end of this month.
CyberPatriot is the National Youth Cyber Education Program created by the Air Force Association to 
inspire high school and middle school students toward careers in cyber-security or other STEM disciplines. The program features an annual competition in which teams across the United States and Canada, as well as from Department of Defense Dependent Schools abroad, compete in a series of online rounds for a chance to earn an all-expenses-paid trip to the in-person CyberPatriot National Finals Competition in Baltimore, MD, in the spring. There, students have the opportunity to win scholarships and network with industry leaders.
“This is another exciting STEM-related initiative for our students that will allow them the opportunity to be recognized by the industry and universities and give them an edge,” STEM Club Adviser William Eipp said.
The students have been using computer coding skills taught in courses such as Introduction to Computer Programming and AP Computer Science to secure a Windows or Linux operating system. Eipp said he hopes it will lead to the district offering a full-year course in cyber-security.
“Programs like these support the district’s efforts to offer more technical education opportunities to better equip our students with 21st century skills,” Eipp said.
In addition to the CyberPatriot program, the Broadalbin-Perth High School STEM Club members also can participate in national rocketry and wind energy competitions.
The STEM Club’s activities are just one example of how students and teachers across the Broadalbin-Perth Central School District are innovating every day both in and out of the classroom, and there is so much more they want to do in the future. To better share these innovative activities and ideas with the community, the district is using the hashtag #BPinnovate on the district’s social media channels whenever it showcases innovation in action at its schools. Broadalbin-Perth is on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram as BPpatriots.
More information about the CyberPatriot program is available at www.uscyberpatriot.org.
