In a national first, South Australian students are developing cyber awareness by working in teams inside a mobile escape room developed in conjunction with global technology companies.

The cyber escape room, which is the first educational experience of its kind in Australia, was demonstrated at Woodville High School on Monday 10 February, teaching how to build cybersecurity skills in the face of increased cyber threats.

The Cyber Escape Experience is designed to foster interest in STEM, increasing South Australia’s pool of young people pursuing careers in high-demand key technical areas such as defence and cybersecurity.

Inside the 12-metre-long shipping container escape room, teams of students work together to solve interactive puzzles, find clues, and accomplish cyber-related objectives to “escape” the unique learning experience being supported by technology business, CGI, and cybersecurity partner, Palo Alto Networks.

In the sessions (which run for 30 to 60 minutes), up to six students at a time learn about cyber risks like identifying phishing campaigns, establishing good password management practices and the importance of keeping sensitive information secure.

The state-of-the-art Cyber Safety Experience is being hosted at Woodville High School before its tour of Australia begins in March.

Woodville High School has been a leader in cyber skills including delivering a Certificate III in Cybersafety in conjunction with TafeSA from next year.

Flinders University have also entered into an agreement to guarantee Woodville High School students entry, without obtaining an ATAR, into the university’s IT degrees if they complete the Certificate III IT (Cybersecurity) TafeSA course in 2026.

Woodville High School Principal Anna Mirasgentis said, “this escape room presents an exciting opportunity for our students and aligns with our school’s strategic direction”.

“At Woodville High School, we are shifting to focus not just on what students know, but on what they can do and who they can be”.

“After looking at what our students were doing after they left school, we identified that a significant number were choosing to study IT, so we have entered a partnership with TafeSA to offer a Certificate III in Information Technology with a cybersecurity pathway”.

"This cybersecurity escape room is a perfect opportunity for our current year 9 and 10 students, in particular, to experience and understand the power and impact of AI personally and its impact on global security", Mrs Mirasgentis said.

The Cyber Escape Experience follows on from cybersecurity training for Department for Education staff provided last year and will be part of an increasing focus on building cybersecurity and technology skills across education for both students and staff.

With cyber threats on the rise globally, the department has established a partnership with global provider Fortinet to roll out free training for corporate and public school staff.

Teachers and other staff have had access to the training since term 3 last year, with more than 600 completing the modules in the first two months and enrolments doubling each week since then. The department will look to explore offering it to students in 2025.

State governments and education sectors accounted for almost 20% of cyber incidents reported in 2022-23 to the Federal Government’s Australian Cyber Security Centre. A key contributor was human error, or people falling for sophisticated scams.

Read more about the department's new cybersecurity awareness training.