Watching this video, you can begin to see why the New York Times Learning Network education blog recently used NOVA’s Cybersecurity Lab’s game and videos in a lesson plan that provides steps to assure online safety.  Another powerful resource is NOVA’s standards-based RNA VirtuaLab that’s based on a wonder molecule called RNA, central to the origin of life, evolution, and the cellular machinery that keeps us alive.  In NOVA’s Cybersecurity Lab students defend a company that is the target of increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks by completing a series of cybersecurity challenges that ask them to crack passwords, craft code, and defeat malicious hackers.

NOVA’s RNA VirtuaLab lets students play the role of a molecular engineer by solving RNA folding puzzles. They can then take their skills to Eterna to design RNAs that could be at the heart of future life-saving therapies.  For discussion questions and lesson plans, go to the RNA Lab collection on PBS LearningMedia.

For the New York Times lesson plan Teaching About Cybersecurity:  Taking Steps to Improve Online Safety and Prevent Data Breaches, click here.