In the News…

My classroom was in the news for a project we are working on with Free Rice.  Take a look:

Cyber-savvy students fighting world hunger

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CHC Elementary Technology teacher, Kelly Tenkely guides students in both learning computer and helping those in need through FreeRice.com.

Provided by: Leza Shupe

Contributed by: Leza Shupe on 1/15/2008

January 14, 2008
Highlands Ranch, CO

Combining knowledge of world hunger and a desire to help others are combined with technology, vocabulary and math! That is how elementary students at Cherry Hills Christian challenge themselves every day in computer class with “FreeRice.com.” As soon as students are finished with their daily assignment, technology teacher, Kelly Tenkely, allows them to visit Free Rice and play the vocabulary quiz game. With each word definition they guess correctly, 20 grains of rice are donated through the United Nations World Food Program to help fight world hunger.

At the end of class, every student records the number of grains of rice they donated that day. Since Thanksgiving, the 305 students in second through fifth grades have donated over 1,197,870 grains of rice. That number continues to grow daily. To help visualize what this much rice looks like, fourth-grader Allie Chambers measured the grains of rice in a tablespoon and did the math to discover there are approximately 7,200 grains of rice in a cup. That means CHC students have made it possible for those in need to cook almost 166 cups of rice creating almost 500 individual servings.

To further their exposure to technology and world hunger, the fourth grade classes are just beginning a new project-to create commercials for FreeRice.com using Keynote and Garage Band application. “When we are finished with the commercials my goal is to let Free Rice know about them, although I’m not sure if they will add them to their site or not,” says Mrs. Tenkely. “The goal of the commercials is to teach our kids how to use Keynote and Garage Band but also to teach them about poverty and hunger. We are creating the commercials to tell others about the subject and to tell them about one way that we can help out with Free Rice.”

Cherry Hills Christian Principal, Linda Wasem, loves to see students learning a variety of life lessons through daily visits to a website. “Our students are not only learning vocabulary-some of those words are really hard, but they are also learning about people in the world who don’t have enough to eat. Their hearts are moved to give.”

For more details about the FreeRice.com vocabulary game, visit FreeRice.com.
Find the whole article here.