# Inspiring Students To Build a Website for Their Own Business
Published: 2022-07-22
Category: Case Studies
Category URL: https://codehs.com/blog/category/case-studies
URL: https://codehs.com/blog/inspiring-students-build-a-website-for-their-own-business-fe7408997f1d

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### Inspiring Students To Build a Website for Their Own Business

#### How Carmen Bryson, a CS Teacher in Ohio, Inspires Students to Build Business Websites in High School

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My name is Carmen Bryson. I teach at Shaw High School in Cleveland, Ohio. Prior to teaching, I received a degree in math with a concentration in computer science, and worked in the private sector as a Computer Analyst. I was inspired to step into education knowing I could make a direct impact on students using my computer science and mathematics skills. I also knew many inner city students in my community were not performing well in math and they had very little (if any) exposure to computer science.

> _“I became an educator to help students learn these challenging subjects and connect what they learned in the classroom to the real-world.”_

In 2020, I joined the CodeHS Inspire Fellowship, a program focused on increasing computer science participation among Black, Latino, and Native American students. As part of the fellowship, I launched a project where my students learned the basics of HTML and CSS so they could create websites to promote their own businesses. I used the CodeHS platform and Web Design course to teach students HTML. The platform was essential for this project and it made learning fun and interactive for my students.

I was inspired to launch this project because my students needed a real-life application to learn financial math and computer science. Many of my students love to learn visually — having them create websites for their businesses was a very practical way for them to learn math, computer science, and entrepreneurship.

As many teachers know, when starting a new project you can run into some hurdles. My school was unexpectedly short one math teacher for the school year and students are expected to fulfill 4 years of math before graduation. We did not have an extra teacher for an elective computer class, but I convinced my principal that I could do both web design and a financial math class in a single course setting.

It took a semester for my school district to see the vision of students learning both, but now they love the web design project I developed and we’re planning to make it a part of our future curriculum! Despite other setbacks throughout the year, students were able to create websites for their businesses by summer break.

There are a handful of students in my classroom who stood out this year for building websites that impacted the school or their lives outside of high school.

1. Amaya Dennis created a website to provide care packages for students who may need inspiration. Check it out [here](https://codehs.com/student/3111283/section/272259/assignment/60339192/).
2. Santana Bugg produced a website to track individual stock portfolios. Check it out [here](https://codehs.com/sandbox/id/stock-market-website-81xSaK).
3. Reseana Payne and Aniesha Woods created a website for the Eye Lash Business. View the website [here](https://codehs.com/sandbox/id/reseana-lashes-4makRf).

![undefined](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cm264m3an0084qegvyd7aetst/images/0adksxcxbna3eh0mw-1728945720143-compressed.0*adKsxcXBnA3EH0mW)Reseana Payne’s and Aniesha Woods’ Eye Lash business webiste

Of my 60 students, 99% are Black and live below the poverty line. They may not know the benefits of creating their own businesses to generate income. This project helped them understand those benefits, develop a vision for what they can accomplish in life, and learn how to advertise a business through a website. **I am very proud of my students!**

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[_Read more stories_](https://readwritecode.blog/tagged/teacher-spotlight) _about how CodeHS Inspire Fellows have expanded computer science education to Black, Latino, and Native American students in their community!_


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