Freerice: A Game for Learning in Online that Fights Hunger with Free Rice

Freerice.com is a website that allows the users to play multiple-choice quiz games in online. This free-to-play website is ad-supported that earn money through sponsors who advertise on the site, and they donate 10 grains of rice for each right answer. The thing ‘10 grains of rice’ is not literally true. But Freerice donates the equivalent amount of money (48 grains of rice in a gram) to the food assistance branch of the United Nations - World Food Programme (WFP), the world's largest humanitarian organization, which uses it to buy rice and gives it to the poor people around the world for free.

This non-profit website is not only donated rice for poor people but also trying to ensure education for all. At the same time, it has kept an opportunity for all to practice English vocabulary, multiplication tables, pre-algebra, chemical symbols, English grammar, SAT, foreign language vocabulary for English speakers, human anatomy, geography (flags of the world, world capitals, country identification, and world landmarks), the identification of famous artwork, literature, quotations, and many more. So, the two main goals of Freerice are to provide education to everyone and everywhere for free and to help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people who do not receive enough nutrition to lead healthy and active life.

The creator of this website John Breen, an American computer programmer, launched it on 7 October 2007 to help his son study for the SAT exam. Later, in March 2009, Breen donated the Freerice website to the UN World Food Programme. It is really amazing to me how quickly we can fill our virtual bowl with 10 grains of rice for each right answer that makes a real meal for someone’s hunger. Freerice has donated over 42 billion grains of rice in its first 10 months of operation. As of 17 January 2017, the number of grains of rice given away amounts to 96,120,381,308. The most common countries receiving rice are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Haiti, Myanmar, Nepal, and Uganda. In Haiti, from January 2011 until May 2011, nearly 6 billion grains of rice has been allocated to feed nearly 300,000 people two meals for a day. In 2008, Freerice has been distributed rice to feed 27,000 refugees from Myanmar sheltering in Bangladesh for two weeks. Moreover, Freerice provides food assistance to a huge number of hungry people via WFP which has more than 80 country offices around the world.

However, Freerice.com is user-friendly and anyone can easily play the game using their computer, tab, or smartphone. In the Freerice Home page you will see something like:

joyful means:

• elderly
• happy
• rapid
• costly

Picture: Home Page of Freerice.com

To play the game, you have to click on one of the four options (‘elderly’, ‘happy’, ‘rapid’, ‘costly’) that you think is correct. Your correct answer will be awarded 10 grains of rice in your virtual bowl that Freerice will donate to help end hunger. But if you give an answer wrong, Freerice will repeat it a few turns later to get your answer right. To change the subject, you have to click on the “Change Subjects” link near the top right of the page, or on the “SUBJECTS” tab at the top beside the “HOME” button. There are eight categories such as humanities, English, math, chemistry, language learning, geography, sciences, and test preparation. And under these categories, there are some topics where users have to click to play on that topic. Freerice has also kept some of these instructions on the right side of its homepage, and in details at FAQs. So, it is easy to play the game on Freerice.com without others’ help.

Freerice has kept an option to its users to build a ‘profile’ on the website submitting additional personal information, such as a name, photo, personal website URL and any other form of personal information. The main reason for creating a profile in it allows a user to interact with others in the network, and the profile can be viewed by other users of the website. Freerice.com and its operator are committed to protecting the privacy of users on the internet. But if any user wants to delete an entire profile or account, it is required to contact with Freerice authority. These things are clearly written on its privacy policy.

Freerice.com gives little in terms of teacher-specific content, but the lesson plans from the WFP benefit the charitable project behind them. Users can easily explore teacher-submitted lesson plans and can submit their own. Though it is not the biggest site for teacher resources, its impact reaches far beyond the classroom. Students can test their knowledge and practice much more things on this site out of their subjects. It helps them to provide better formulate ideas, and after practising in the site, they will be able

• to write more effective papers, emails, and business letters.
• to speak more precisely and persuasively.
• to comprehend more of what they read.
• to read faster because their comprehension improves.
• to get higher grades in high school, college and graduate school.
• to increase the scores on tests like the SAT, GRE, LSAT, and GMAT.
• to improve their performance at job interviews and conferences.
• to sell themselves, their services, and their products more effectively.
• to be more successful in their job.

At the same time, they feel proud by knowing that they are contributing to a worthy cause. Freerice.com has been awarded many awards from its launching time, among of them Yahoo! Pick of the Year 2007 - Charity Category - Winner, TIME Magazine - 50 Best Websites 2008, 2010 Parent's Choice Awards - Online Learning, 15th Annual Webby Awards - Honoree, TIME Magazine - 50 Best Websites 2011, and Digital Communications Award 2011 - Best Corporate Game are more noticeable. When TIME magazine has published 50 Best Websites 2007, it writes about Freerice - “if you want to do a good deed and build your vocabulary, you've come to the right place.”

At last, I want to say that don’t waste your time by watching the unnecessary video or playing animated games, try to utilize your time and give your hands for the poor people. It does not matter that you have an empty hand, but you have at least a big heart, and there is Freerice.com that will help illiterate and hungry people. So, say about Freerice.com to your friends and use it at your leisure time that will help to end hunger.