Students Fight Hunger with Internet Game

With food prices and world hunger on the rise, some Atlanta students have found a fun way to help - by using an Internet game.

IT'S NOT YOUR USUAL INTERNET GAME.. AND NOT YOUR USUAL WINNING OUTCOME.

FREE RICE IS A VOCABULARY GAME THAT HELPS DELIVER RICE TO COUNTRIES IN NEED.

IT'S CAUGHT ON WITH ATLANTA TEACHER DAVID MILLIANS (PRONO: MILL - LYONS) AND HIS STUDENTS.

HE EVEN ALLOWS IT TO BE PLAYED IN HIS CLASSROOM.

"Feeding people has been an important issue that we've discussed all year, and when we found Free Rice, we had a wonderful vocabulary tool that also produces food for people who need it, so it was both fun and educational, and important."

FOR EACH CORRECT WORD CHOSEN IN THE MULTIPLE CHOICE GAME, SPONSORS DONATE TWENTY GRAINS OF RICE TO COMBAT WORLD HUNGER, THROUGH THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME.
    

"World hunger is a huge and important issue.  We think this year we need 3.4 billion dollars alone, as the World Food Programme, to feed some 73 million people or so.  And as you mentioned, with the high wheat and rice prices, the price has gone up so much.  An extra half a billion dollars, just because of the price rises."

STUDENTS FIND THE GAME FUN AND EDUCATIONAL.  THEY'VE EVEN CREATED A NEW WORD TO DESCRIBE IT.

"It's funducational!"

"Since I read a lot, I guess, learning new words so that I understand the reading better, and finding words and helping people." 

"It's a good feeling to know that you're giving rice to people around the world."

AND WITH SO MANY BENEFITS, MILLIANS (PRONO: MILL-LYONS) FEELS GOOD ABOUT ENCOURAGING STUDENTS TO PLAY THE GAME AS TIME ALLOWS.

"We give them time to play before school, during breaks; if they have a free period, and some people play it every day more than once, and some students more intermittently.  It's not just another vocabulary game.  It delivers rice to people who need it, so it serves several purposes at once, and I think it feels more important to me, but also more important to my students."

If you'd like to participate, the website is free rice dot com. 

So far, according to the site, the World Food Programme's total donations is almost 32 billion grains of rice.