Here is a great thing to do with your online students: Donate Free Rice to help end world hunger… (and improve their vocabulary while you are at it!)

Free Rice Screenshot (Main Page)

Here is a news article about it, in case you would like to use it for current events.

Free Rice Screenshot sycophant

Advertising at the bottom of the screen changes with every question to promote the companies that donate the rice.

Level 50 is all but impossible to get to without a dictionary, which I encourage… After all, what is the harm in having students looking up words in the dictionary? This is also a good time to introduce using Google as a dictionary.

Google as Dictionary

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On a similar (Social Responsibility) topic, check this out:

Make Your Difference is a contest to empower youth to impact the world through creating a new possibility in their school, community, city and beyond into positively impacting the world.”

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We really can make a difference, especially if we help our students recognize that they can make a difference!

Originally posted: November 14th, 2007

Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:

Stephen Downes ‘burst my bubble’ on this activity with his post about it… However in the end, I agree with the commenter after me who said that it is still a worthwhile activity, perhaps with students doing the math (after the fact) 🙂

If you really want to make a difference, check out kiva or do what I did with my school last year and help Free the Children. (Details)

Comments on the original post:

  1. Thank you! I’ll have a 7th grade doing this next week before Thanksgiving!!

    mrsdurff on Wednesday, 14 November 2007, 12:32 CET

  2. Hey Mr. Truss!Having spent the past 5 years looking into youth empowerment in the field of global humanitarian and social justice issues, it is truly encouraging to see that teachers are bringing these important themes into the classroom! I would suggest challenging the students to look into how FreeRice is helping, and whether it is a “one-time band-aid” or a sustainable system (linked to the Socials 11 current events component).

    cheers,

    James Liu on Saturday, 29 December 2007, 01:14 CET