Free Rice - Academics With A Social Justice/Responsibility Twist

Today, I had the opportunity to share this site and work with a teacher who had to cover a 6th grade special education class.  We used a Smartboard to share Freerice and the students and they were so engaged in "rice" that they were totally engaged in getting to the board to answer vocabulary and grammar questions.

Last week, I shared the site with another group of teachers and they became a little competitive when they started answering questions and they didn't want to leave the room when the period ended.   I can't wait to see how their students responded to the site!

Freerice is a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Programme and they partner with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.  It is an easy to learn interactive site that donates 10 gains of rice to a third world country for every correct answer.  The engaged learning combined with global community service/social justice is an absolute win-win in my book.

The rice bowl fills as students correctly answer questions.





 Although Freerice opens on English vocabulary, you can change subjects.

Freerice keeps it simple.  There is no log in required to play but you can register your class, log in and see the total grains rice donated by your group.  They have donated over 2 billion grains to date. 

I would love to hear how your students like this site and how you are using it as a tool.  I hope you try it and share it with a colleague.  By paying it forward everyone wins and more rice will be donated.  Enjoy!