MINNEAPOLIS – Ralph Boelter, special agent in charge of the Minneapolis FBI office is honored to announce that a group of Minnesota middle school students proved their Internet safety prowess by scoring highest among other middle schools nationally in an Internet safety program backed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Nova Southeastern University (NSU).
A total of 112 Valley View Middle School students participated in the FBI-SOS (Safe Online Surfing) Challenge and achieved the highest scores for the January and February editions of the program under the direction of learning resource teacher Jonathan D. Buckley. Valley View, the first school to participate from Minnesota, will be recognized on Mar. 6 by representatives from the FBI and NSU. The event will take place at 9:15 a.m., at the school located at 6750 Valley View Road in Edina, Minn.
The FBI-SOS Internet Challenge is a joint partnership between NSU and the FBI. This monthly program is administered by NSU’s Fischler School of Education and Human Services and is designed to provide middle school students with tips to avoid dangerous situations on the Internet, specifically Internet predators. The program, free and available to middle schools nationwide, consists of a pre-quiz that tests students’ current knowledge of the internet, a scavenger hunt where students discover tips on how to safely surf the web, and a post-quiz that measures what they have leaned. At the end of each month, the school that has accumulated the most quiz points is declared the FBI-SOS national winner and has an FBI special agent visit their school to award the national FBI-SOS trophy.
To date approximately 15,000 middle school students in 27 states have participated in the program. For more information about the FBI-SOS program, please log on to www.fbi-sos.org.
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FBI Mar. 5, 2008 press release