Saturday, July 4, 2009

Free rice

Freerice.com is a website which not only works as an effective learning tool, it also serves a charitable humanitarian function. The website prompts multiple choice questions in topics ranging from identifying famous paintings to geography, vocabulary in five languages, chemical element symbols, and mathematics. Questions ascend in difficulty as the user selects the correct answers and level of difficulty is determined as the system tracks the number of correct responses. You would be hard pressed to find someone that is unable to find a challenge somewhere on the website. Even incorrect responses pop back up after a few turns so the user has another chance.

Each correct answer donates ten grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. The rice is paid for by the site sponsors. Further, where and when possible the donations are used to buy rice from sources domestic to the beneficiaries so as to stimulate their economies. Unwittingly, many humanitarian efforts send foodstuffs and other goods from external sources, incurring both transportation costs and competition. This program is conscientious enough to take measures in evading the problem.