Students in the Honors Leadership Class at Williamsburg Christian Academy are headed to Fort Lesley J. McNair on Friday in Washington, D.C. as part of research for their proposed C-SPAN StudentCam submission this year.

Experts and Professors from the National Defense University located at Fort McNair will give our group several presentations focusing on cybersecurity, culminating with a demonstration and simulation of response if the national grid is compromised and goes down in NDU’s cybersecurity lab. The team will also have an ability to conduct an extended question and answer session with experts in the field of cybersecurity, research material that will be vital to composition and construction of their StudentCam submission, which will be due to C-SPAN in mid-January.

In the StudentCam competition this year, students in grades 6-12 are asked to create a short (5-7 minute) video documentary on a topic related to the new 2017 competition theme, “Your Message To Washington: What is the most urgent issue for the new president and Congress to address in 2017?” Certainly with all of the information leaks and hacks in the highest levels of government this past election season, cybersecurity would rank amongst the highest of priorities for our incoming administration and Congress.

Fort Lesley J. McNair, DC is located on the point of land where the Potomac and Anacostia rivers join in Washington, D.C. It has been an Army post for more than 200 years, third only to West Point and Carlisle Barracks in length of service, and has housed a weapons arsenal, penitentiary, hospital and the Army War College through its history.