Submittted photo Sixth-grade students from New Ulm Middle School won the National FBI Safe Online Surfing (FBI-SOS) award in the small school category for December 2020. Pictured, some of the students taking part in the challenge.

NEW ULM — Sixth grade students from New Ulm Middle School in Minnesota won the National FBI Safe Online Surfing (FBI-SOS) award in the small school category for the month of December 2020. The students at scored 95.56 percent to beat out every other participating school in the country in that category for the month.

During December 2020, a total of 162,185 students in 2,280 schools in all 50 states and U.S. territories took the exam nationwide to compete for the award.

Open to all public, private, and home schools nationwide, the FBI-SOS initiative is a free, age-appropriate, competitive and fun online program that promotes cyber citizenship and teaches students in third through eighth grades how to recognize and respond to online dangers — like Internet predators and cyberbullying — and covers topics such as social networking and gaming safety. Every month during the school year, the FBI recognizes the top-scoring schools in each of its three size categories, based on the number of students participating from each school.

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Stephanie Cassioppi will present a certificate to the students during a virtual presentation with all 6th grade classes at 8:15 am Wednesday, February 3.

The FBI-SOS Internet Challenge was developed with the assistance of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and with the input of teachers and schools. Anyone — young or old, in the U.S. or worldwide — can complete the activities on the FBI-SOS website. The testing and competition, however, are open only to students in grades 3-8 at public, private, or home schools in the United States and its territories.

To find out how to participate, visit: https://sos.fbi.gov/en/