Fellow green blogerette Marcie Kahler-Davis sent me an email today pointing me in the direction of this nifty site called Free Rice. For vocab nerds like me, it’s TOTALLY addictive — with every word definition you get right, 10 grains of rice are donated through the UN to help conquer world hunger (I got to a top score of 40, and gave over 1,000 grains of rice… if it weren’t for stupid “manse” I probably could’ve gotten 41).
It’s just one of the many games out there that serve a purpose beyond entertainment. But even if all you’re looking for is some distraction on a Sunday afternoon, the most eco-friendly way to go is a board game with minimal packaging (I love Scrabble, natch) and preferably no batteries required, rather than some high-tech, multi-component, energy-sucking thing like, say, Scene It.
So from now on, whenever I play a game, it’s gotta be green-friendly — or else I won’t be game at all.
Oh, this is addictive! I got to 47.
Love that game and who knew that Troika was another word for Threesome.
What fun! Thanks! My first try I got up to level 47 or maybe 48 (i wasn’t paying much attention) and donated 300 grains. Now I can’t seem to get past 43! Are you sure this game doesn’t make you stupider rather than smarter? Or perhaps they lull you into a false sense of quality the first time so that you’ll keep coming back to try in vain to beat your score.
Wow….47? I was so proud of making it to 41!
thanks for sending us to this site. : )
I got up to level 48 and donated many grains of rice. what a fun game.
Yay! I love this. Thanks (I think) for linking to this, although probably it’s a terrible thing for me to learn about. Now how am I supposed to study for my atmospheric science exam??
Thanks Vanessa for posting the idea! It is addictive!!!
haha, diddo to everyone else. my boyfriend and i were competing to see who would get a higher score. he seems to think that getting the same score as me, but quicker, is somehow better. psh
thanks vanessa!
Holy crap, Vanessa! I’m on the verge of feeding a whole village right about now… LOL!
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[...] Green as a Thistle posted about the highly addictive word game Free Rice: “FreeRice has two goals: 1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free; 2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.” I do wonder if world hunger can be ended just by giving out rice for free (seems like there might be a little more to it than that?), but while the bigger scope is being tackled, free rice for hungry people is a beyond noble cause. [...]
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Wow–they’ve changed it! Now they donate 20 grains of rice for each word correct! They must be doing well.
(I got up to 43 just now!)
I love games, but if you’re trying to save energy by using the computer just for essential things, this one is a bit counterproductive! Does one save electricity, or donate some rice?
Great games blog, cheers