Eighth-grade students at Evergreen Jr. High hosted a Cybersecurity Fair in April for local fifth graders. 

The students, as part of the College and Career Awareness class, created interactive booths, digital presentations, and hands-on lessons to teach their younger peers how to stay safe online — covering everything from phishing scams to password safety.

Kurt Twining, a technology teacher at Evergreen, said as part of the class these kids research cybersecurity skills and then teach those skills to younger students. 

“They’ve also been able to learn about different aspects of digital citizenship — how to keep your passwords safe, what malware is and what ransomware is and why all these things are important to them today in 2025,” Twining said in a video released by the Granite School District. 

Being safe and literate in an increasingly digital world is becoming an educational norm, especially in cybersecurity, an area often shown as a tech pathway for upcoming
college students and young professionals. Utah Valley University recently won an international cybersecurity policy competition in March over 45 university, military and private sector teams. 

Younger students came from William Penn Elementary, Rosecrest Elementary and the Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind. Twining said one of his aims was to have the class project be a public presentation, bringing judges and, on this occasion, finding ways to engage younger peers. 

“Some of the (displays) are very impressive and seeing what the students were able to come up with and how they were able to implement the things that I taught them has been amazing,” he said. “Overall, I would say it’s very impressive to see what the students have come up with and their creativity in making these displays and engaging with the fifth grade students who come to visit.”

Twining said he appreciates the real-world application of the project to meet the needs of what students face today. 

“(Cybersecurity) is not something that’s necessarily covered in the fifth-grade curriculum,” he said, noting the excitement of the teachers he spoke with at William Penn. “But these students are going to be in junior high next year and have their own Chromebooks to use and they need to know how to be safe online.”λ