Looking for a way to help feed the hungry, develop academic skills and introduce students to free accessible technology all at once? Probably not unless you have run across FreeRice.com and thought to pair it with a free text reader as was done by teacher Keir Lewis at Col. E. Brooke Lee Middle School.FreeRice is a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Program and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. FreeRice has two goals: 1) provide education to everyone for free and 2) help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.
Students answer multiple choice questions for a variety of topic areas (see below) that may have applications for elementary to high school students. For every correct answer, FreeRice.com donates 10 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program (“Though 10 grains of rice may seem like a small amount, it is important to remember that while you are playing, so are thousands of other people at the same time.” – www.FreeRice.com).
A text reader like NaturalReader allows words to be read aloud for those who struggle with reading, a particular benefit with some of the grammar and vocabulary sections. NaturalReader is a free text reader program that is available in MCPS schools and for download at home - allowing teachers to model this at school and have students extend the benefit to home. A number of quick guides and instructional videos on NaturalReader are available on the HIAT website.
Freerice.com topic areas (as of 1/26/10):
ART: Famous Paintings CHEMISTRY: Chemical Symbols (Basic), Chemical Symbols (Full List) ENGLISH: English Grammar, English Vocabulary GEOGRAPHY: Identify Countries on the Map, World Capitals LANGUAGE LEARNING: French, German, Italian, Spanish MATH: Basic Math (Pre-Algebra), Multiplication Table
How have you used these resources to support learning and service? Do you know of other good websites providing similar benefits?
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