As if my newly-developed love of Sudoku isn’t enough to prove my geek status, I’ve found a new website that allows me to flex my vocab skills while helping to address the issue of world hunger.
Freerice.org is the result of John Breen’s attempt to make learning vocabulary more fun for his kids. The site functions simply but effectively; you are presented with a vocab word and four multiple-choice options for the correct definition. But Breen has also found a way to marry this word-building skills activity with one of his great passions — the fight against world poverty. For every vocab word guessed correctly, Free Rice donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nation’s world hunger projects.
Although 20 grains amounts to only a handful of rice, the cumulative effort of thousands of vocab-builders across the globe is starting to add up. The total number of grains donated in December alone was 6,948,988,060! As this catches on, that number is climbing steadily.
John Breen is also the author of the amazing poverty.com website, a wonderful resource for anyone wishing to learn more about poverty issues around the world and take part in the effort to change it.