Susan Barr
Kern Valley Sun

One of the many benefits of modern technology is the variety it offers in terms of entertainment and education related pursuits.

For the multitudes who find enjoy playing games on home computers and cell phones, there is now an even better reason to spend time doing so. The educational website, www.freerice.com, allows users to play games while earning free grains of rice for the United Nations 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. Everyone playing together makes a huge difference. Thanks to the loyal fans of the site, FreeRice has generated enough rice to feed millions of people since it started in October 2007.

The website www.freerice.com aims to educate, while also reducing world hunger.

FreeRice was founded by John Breen and in March 2009 he donated the site to the UN World Food Programme. In making the donation, Breen expressed his hopes that FreeRice would be able to grow over the coming years, helping to feed and educate as many people as possible throughout the world.

The rice is paid for by the sponsors whose names appear at the bottom of the screen when you enter a correct answer. The sponsors support both learning (free education for everyone) and reducing hunger (free rice for the hungry).

Games on the site vary according to age, ability and subject. Players can test their knowledge on art, chemistry, English, geography, math and various foreign languages including Spanish, French, Italian and German.

The games are designed to be fun, but they have the added benefit of improving the user's speaking, writing, thinking, grades, scores on tests like the SAT, GRE, LSAT and GMAT and helps them to do better at job interviews and on-the-job performance.

The program keeps track of how many people get each question right or wrong, and then adjusts each questions difficulty level accordingly. So the questions at the easiest levels are the ones that people most often get right. The questions at the hardest levels are the ones that people most often get wrong. As more and more people have played the game, these levels have become increasingly more accurate.

Local educators like Wallace Middle school teacher Tammy Howard has used the program as a learning tool with her English students. “They really enjoyed the activities and found the fact that they were saving lives very rewarding. In a matter of minutes, we donated over 1,000 grains of rice!” said Howard.