Organizers for CyberPatriot camps like those hosted by Calhoun Community College say they’ve seen a trend of rising interest among middle and high schoolers in cybersecurity and IT-related fields.
June 27, 2025 •
GraciAnn Goodin, The Decatur Daily, Ala.
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(TNS) — Local students are learning about cybersecurity and applying their knowledge by competing in a CyberPatriot national competition through a camp held at Calhoun Community College this week, with more camps planned for next month.
Among several educational camps offered this summer in a partnership between Calhoun and the Decatur-Morgan County Chamber of Commerce, cyber camps were offered for middle school and high school students this week from Monday through Friday.
Chamber Director of Talent Development and Recruitment Amber Fortenberry said the cyber camp is particularly well attended, with 40 students participating this week.
“It’s exciting to see the numbers where they are because that tells us that we have lots of youth that are interested or wanting to do something with computers, which is not surprising with all of the gaming and everything out there these days,” Fortenberry said. “It’s endless, on computers, what they can do. The technology is going to continue to grow, and I think their interest will, as well.”
This reflects a trend Sherry Adams, the cyber camp director and a Computer Information Systems (CIS) instructor at Calhoun’s Huntsville campus, has noticed of increased interest in cybersecurity and IT careers.
“I do teach CIS classes, and I ask all my new students what their major is. Everybody is like ‘cyber, cyber, cyber,'” Adams said.
The field offers a variety of job options. Adams described cybersecurity as a big umbrella, with a lot of small niches below it. Fortenberry said the need for cybersecurity extends beyond companies whose sole focus is IT.
“We have several cyber companies that are members of the chamber, but that’s not to mention all of our members, in some form, need IT or cyber support,” Fortenberry said. “Filling that workforce need and introducing high school students to the art of cybersecurity is very important, so we decided that was a great outlet for us to support the camps.”
During the camp, students learn about Linux and Microsoft Windows operating systems, different number systems, cyber ethics and online safety. Jeremy Doggett, a Calhoun CIS lab assistant, said the students are normally most excited at the introduction to Linux.
When reviewing information taught the previous day, Adams said she was surprised how much students remembered. One kid even came back having learned more outside of the camp.
“One little one said, ‘I went home and talked to my dad, and he taught me a new kind of phishing,’ so he was like ‘there’s five,’ and he named them all,” Adams said. “There’s one called quishing, which is QR codes. I didn’t even cover that yesterday.”
The instructors try to make the camp fun and engaging for the students by incorporating hands-on, practical learning and games. Doggett said that after the high school students learned about password strength, encryption, two-factor authentication, password managers and different types of hacks, they had a chance to reinforce the information with a game.
They played a game called Fishtopia, where players earn points by catching and selling fish. In order to catch the fish, they need bait, which they earned by correctly answering questions about what they just learned.
Calhoun will also offer four more sessions of the CyberPatriot camps for high school students, with two more July 7-11 and two advanced level sessions July 21-25. The upcoming camps will not be in partnership with the Chamber.
All CyberPatriot Camps are a part of the U.S. Air and Space Forces Association’s National Youth Cyber Education Program, which was “created to inspire K-12 students toward careers in cybersecurity or other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines critical to our nation’s future,” according to the association’s website.
Camps are held in more than 75 locations across the United States and Canada. At the end of the camp, students are put into teams of four and given virtual operating systems, which they must comb through to find and fix different cybersecurity issues. One year, one of the teams at the Calhoun camp placed 20th in the nation, according to Fortenberry.
