Education Activities

As students play the game, they will be exposed to key computer security-related concepts. Therefore, there is educational value making this game available to students independent of specific lesson plans. The following are some sample lesson plans. In each case, when students play the game, they should be encouraged to read aloud all the flavor text on the cards.

• Ask students to play the game in or outside of class. Students should pick an interesting technology or threat that arose during game play and research the security aspects of that technology or threat further.

  • Identifying Potential Threats: If the students picked a technology to explore further, then they should also discuss other example threats against that technology.

  • Applying Threats: If students picked a threat to explore further, then they should discuss other example scenarios in which those threats might arise.

• Security Risk Management: Ask students to play the game in or outside of class. Students should pick two Missions and discuss how probable they think that attack are, and how much damage they might cause if successfully executed.

• Defenses: Play one or more rounds in class. Then circulate the entire deck of Mission cards and ask the classroom to pick three Mission cards - and their content - for deeper study. Students should focus specifically on how they think they might avoid the threats discussed on the Mission.

• Current Security Affairs: Ask students to play the game in or outside of class. Students should then research contemporary computer security threats on the Web (e.g., by reading news articles) and develop two new Missions and two new Entropy cards of their own that build in some way on the contemporary computer security threats that they’ve researched. In their write-ups, students should discuss the Missions and Entropy cards, explain how they correspond to realistic computer security issues or threats, and cite the relevant sources on the Web.

• Reflection: Ask students to write a one- or two-paragraph description of computer security (this task is intentionally open-ended). Then ask the students to play the game in or outside of class. Ask students to now think deeply about what computer security means to them. Then ask the students to write a one- or two-paragraph discussion of how their description of computer security might change (if at all) as a result of having played the game. If their description has changed, also ask them to provide a new one- or two-paragraph description of computer security.