Garfield Teaches 10,525 Tampa Bay Third-Graders Internet Safety

CLEARWATER, FL — As more schools go digital, Internet safety breaches are on the increase. To help children become responsible digital citizens, the Clearwater-based nonprofit Center for Cyber Safety and Education provided free training to 10,525 third-graders in the Hillsborough, Pinellas, Manatee and Pasco school districts as part of Cyber Safety Day Tampa Bay Jan. 28.

Thanks to the support of local businesses, 105 participating elementary schools received the Garfield’s Cyber Safety Adventures, an award-winning digital citizenship program developed by top cybersecurity professionals to teach basic Internet safety to elementary-age children.

Research shows that, on average, a child gets a smart phone by 10 years old.

Forty percent of kids in grades four through eight have chatted with a stranger online. Of those, 53 percent revealed their phone numbers to a stranger and 11 percent met with a stranger, according to the Center’s Children’s Internet Usage Study.

Additionally, 79 percent of schools participating in Cyber Safety Day don’t have a digital citizenship program in place.

Twenty percent of those schools reported incidents of cyberbullying.

And 90 percent said teaching Internet safety is a challenge due to lack of materials, information or time.

To educate children on the dangers of the Internet, the Center for Cyber Safety and Education teamed up with the cybersecurity professionals at (ISC)⊃2 and legendary Garfield cartoonist Jim Davis to create an entertaining and interactive way for the children to learn how to be safe and secure online. Garfield and his friends share real-life cyber situations and, with the help of Dr. Cybrina and her sidekick BISBY, learn what they should and shouldn’t be doing on the Internet.

The program features Garfield cartoons and comic books created for the Center for Cyber Safety and Education by Davis, and deals with such topics as:

• Privacy: Online Friends Are Not the Same As Real Friends
• Safe Posting: Pause Before You Post
• Cyberbullying: Be King Online.