About Us
fEmpower CS is a web-based introductory computer science program for elementary school girls that is simple, interactive, and easily scalable to communities with limited resources to teach CS in schools. The program was developed with the goal to give back to our community in a way that gave more opportunities to women in STEM. In classes taught by our team of high school students, girls will be guided through the activity-based curriculum with no prior coding experience required. Over the span of our six-day program, students will the learn basic fundamentals of coding, and will be encouraged to apply their creativity and problem solving skills to their own projects with the guidance of our teachers. Our goals with fEmpower are to offer opportunities and resources to motivate girls to pursue STEM and empower them as they face a growing world of technology, and also to help combat the gender inequality in it.
While we use the block-coding platform Scratch as the primary foundation for our curriculum, we also use additional activities with Java, so students are exposed to tools used in the real world. Students can repeat the program, as activities keep changing. We hope to encourage young girls to continue exploring, discovering, and learning within the world of computer science.
Looking forward to meeting you on the journey!
Meet The Team
Eda Erdogmus
Director
Jasmine Sun
Director
Jessica Jin
Director
Kennedy Burke
Director
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Our Impact
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"Rave reviews from [student]! Thank you to all involved."
- Pilot session parent
"My daughter was hesitant at first about taking the class. She has had a few Scratch intro classes in the past and since they were only one class they were all very basic. Even after the first class with fEmpower she wasn’t sure she wanted to continue . . . But, by the second class and certainly by the end, my daughter loved it. She would continue working on her program long after the class ended and was very proud of it. Thank you so much for opening her eyes to how fun programming can be."
- Fall Session 2 parent
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"My daughter took the class at VO and loved it. Thank you for your work! "
- Pilot session parent
"I think its a great program because I learned a lot!"
"The teachers were so nice! Thank you!"
- July session students
"I liked the shop activity where we used variables because you could choose whatever you wanted and I was able to use variables and several other blocks."
- July session student
"[Student] loved the classes. Please let us know if you plan on having more classes even if they are paid. We would definitely enroll for more lessons. Great initiative."
- August session parent
"My favorite activity was Kahoot, because we would review things we learned in class and if we got it wrong the teachers would explain to us."
- July session student
"The class was Awesome!"
- August session student
During our pilot classes, we had students complete surveys to evaluate their engagement, progress, and learning. On a scale of 1-5, they rated their comfort level in understanding target concepts, before and after the program. By the end of the session, their responses showed significant improvement.
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Although just starting out, based on feedback and success, we already saw the potential impact that fEmpower has with helping to bring young girls into computer science and offering a positive learning experience. This only inspires us to strive to improve fEmpower, so that students may find our future offerings even more useful.
We founded fEmpower to offer scalable, in-person classes to girls in local elementary schools during the school year and summer. Our first in-person session in February/March was a great success, but the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted our original plans. However, it has allowed us to expand our curriculum online and open registration for a new launch of virtual program sessions, with passionate hopes of continuing to work with young girls.
We were ecstatic when our two summer sessions both filled almost immediately. View some results of our pre- and post-program summer surveys below! Since then, we've run successful classes in Fall 2020 in the midst of hybrid and remote learning. Be on the lookout for future, brand-new program offerings and curricula.
Thank you for checking out fEmpower CS!
