The Heritage School of Kabala

I blogged previously about some of the great stuff that Heritage High School, our sister high school – and rival – is doing. For the last three years Heritage has held MAD Week (Make A Difference), and raised money to help children in Sierra Leone. (Arapahoe, my high school, does similar things with both the Make A Wish foundation and Toys for Tots.)

Well, this week something even more special is happening – they are opening a school in Sierra Leone, the Heritage School of Kabala. They’ve raised almost $60,000 in the last three years and a delegation from Heritage High School is presently in Sierra Leone to celebrate the grand opening of the school and to strengthen the connection between these two schools.

You can read more about MAD week, read about the trip itself, check out some of the blog posts, or join in the live blog from Sierra Leone and Littleton, Colorado this Thursday, November 12th, from 8:00 to 10:00 am MST (UTC/GMT -7). (The live blog is dependent on the connectivity in Sierra Leone, as electricity – much less Internet connectivity – is not always reliable.)

Way to go Heritage Eagles, you make all of us proud.

Free Rice Has Added Additional Subjects

I blogged about Free Rice previously, a website where students (or anyone) can practice building their vocabulary and at the same time donate rice to the United Nations World Food Program. Well, it appears as though they've added some subjects:

ART - Famous Paintings
CHEMISTRY - Chemical Symbols (Basic), Chemical Symbols (Full List)
ENGLISH - English Grammar, English Vocabulary
GEOGRAPHY - Identify Countries on the Map, World Capitals
LANGUAGE LEARNING - French, German, Italian, Spanish
MATH - Basic Math (Pre-Algebra), Multiplication Table

This is not higher order thinking, but as I said before:

I think this is another interesting use of the web, combining educational activities (not just the fairly simple vocab building activity, but educating folks about hunger itself - including links to the sister site poverty.com) with contributing to the greater good. I could see this being a springboard for writing activities, social studies units on developing countries or poverty, and even some math and science activities (calculating how many grains of rice it takes to feed a certain number of people, nutritional value of the rice, caloric intake, etc.)

Lots of possibilities here for creative teachers and students and maybe, just maybe, doing some good in the process. And it's also, you know, kinda fun.

So, point your students (and your friends) to Free Rice and perhaps they can have a little fun, learn a little, and help provide rice to those in need.

Fight Hunger While Learning Vocab

In the spirit of my last post, here's a chance to have your students work on their vocabulary (English) and fight world hunger at the same time. Free Rice is a website that has a fairly simple premise:

• Click on the answer that best defines the word.


• If you get it right, you get a harder word. If wrong, you get an easier word.


• For each word you get right, we donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.

FreeRice has a custom database containing thousands of words at varying degrees of difficulty. There are words appropriate for people just learning English and words that will challenge the most scholarly professors. In between are thousands of words for students, business people, homemakers, doctors, truck drivers, retired people… everyone!

FreeRice automatically adjusts to your level of vocabulary. It starts by giving you words at different levels of difficulty and then, based on how you do, assigns you an approximate starting level. You then determine a more exact level for yourself as you play. When you get a word wrong, you go to an easier level. When you get three words in a row right, you go to a harder level. This one-to-three ratio is best for keeping you at the “outer fringe” of your vocabulary, where learning can take place.

There are 50 levels in all, but it is rare for people to get above level 48.

There are several pages on the World Food Program website that indicate that this is legitimate. I'm going to assume that the ads it displays are "appropriate," but your mileage may vary.

I think this is another interesting use of the web, combining educational activities (not just the fairly simple vocab building activity, but educating folks about hunger itself - including links to the sister site poverty.com) with contributing to the greater good. I could see this being a springboard for writing activities, social studies units on developing countries or poverty, and even some math and science activities (calculating how many grains of rice it takes to feed a certain number of people, nutritional value of the rice, caloric intake, etc.)

Lots of possibilities here for creative teachers and students and maybe, just maybe, doing some good in the process. And it's also, you know, kinda fun.

It Takes a Whole Village (or High School)

Like in most school districts in the U.S., the high schools in my district have a pretty intense rivalry. But I just had to share this great story - and video - from our "rival" Heritage High School.

Via Dan Maas's (my CIO) blog:

During MAD Week, the school hosted a visit from Ishmael Beah who wrote a book (A long way gone) about his personal experiences as a child soldier. When Ishmael came to Heritage, he was greeted with a heroes welcome. Part of the welcome was to present a video about the effort that the students had put forth.

"MAD" stands for Make A Difference, and boy did they. They raised over $14,000 to help children in Sierra Leone, and one of their students delivered the aid in person. Here's the powerful video they made.

Way to go Heritage!