FBI Minneapolis
Public Affairs Specialist Diana Freedman
Desk: 763-569-8095 | Mobile: 202-738-3285 | dfreedman@fbi.gov
March 26, 2020

FBI Minneapolis Encourages Safe Online Learning for Students, Teachers, and Parents

Are you searching for free, fun, and educational content for your children while they are home and not at school these days? Check out the FBI’s Safe Online Surfing website. It has games teaching students in grades 3 through 8 how to stay safe online.

The goals of the FBI’s Safe Online Surfing (SOS) Internet Challenge program are to make children aware of online threats and give them the knowledge they need to steer around them.

The SOS program teaches young people about web terminology and how to recognize secure and trustworthy sites. Other lessons cover how to protect personal details online, create strong passwords, avoid viruses and scams, be wary of strangers, and be a good virtual citizen. Students in third through eighth grades and their parents can visit the island that corresponds with their grade level and surf through activities that teach how to recognize hazards and respond appropriately.

More than 1 million students completed the program and took the SOS exam during the 2018-2019 school year. SOS activities are available to everyone to use, but teachers must register for a class to participate in the tests and competition, which may be an option when in-school learning resumes. Any public, private, or home school in the United States with at least five students is eligible for the online challenge, which meet state and federal standards. Teachers manage their students’ participation in the program and the FBI does not collect or store any student information.

Since October 2012, the FBI-SOS website has been visited nearly 3.6 million times, with a total of more than 10.6 million page views. Here is a link to the website for students, parents, and teachers: https://sos.fbi.gov/en/.