Written Proposal:
From CyberOne Wiki
BLSA FreeRice Written Proposal
Shahira Ali
Harvard Law School – Spring 2009
Table of Contents
- I. Introduction
- II. About FreeRice
- III. Integrating FreeRice into BLSA Committees
- A. Street Law
- B. Academic Affairs
- C. Community Service
- IV. Adopting an African School: Expanding the Jamaica Project
- VI. Conclusion
Contents |
I. Introduction
FreeRice is an innovative website that is designed to educate students of all ages and to feed the hungry all at the same time. As a BLSA Executive Board member for the last two years, I could not help but notice the similarities between the goals of FreeRice and the goals of BLSA. As will be seen in the sections that follow, BLSA can use FreeRice as an educational tool to accomplish many of the goals that the organization sets for itself each year.
This proposal is a supplement to the video proposal and is meant to outline in more depth the various ways in which BLSA can integrate FreeRice into the activities it already engages in. The proposal proceeds in four Parts. Part I briefly describes FreeRice, its goals, its content, and its overall structure. Part II outlines ways in which different BLSA Committees (namely Street Law, Academic Affairs, and Community Service) can integrate FreeRice into their Committee activities. Part III focuses on the Africa Summit Committee and proposes an extension of the Jamaica Project that was undertaken by students in Professor Nesson’s Open Education class this spring. The project would entail “adopting” a local African school by engaging in various virtual meetings with the schools students. These meetings would culminate with a real meeting when the Africa Summit participants visit the school during the annual Africa Summit trip. Part V briefly concludes.
II. About FreeRice
FreeRice is a non-profit website where users can play various educational games in order to raise money to fight world hunger. Freerice.com is run by the United Nations World Food Program and has goals: (1) to provide education to everyone for free and (2) to help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free. The games that are currently available on FreeRice center around the following subjects: English vocabulary, Multiplication tables, Pre-Algebra, Chemistry, English Grammar, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Geography, and Art.
After a user chooses a subject, he or she is given a multiple-choice question that tests the users knowledge on that particular subject area. The difficulty levels of the games vary between each subject. Similar to the structure of the SAT, FreeRice raises the difficulty level every time a user gets a question right and lowers it every time a user gets a question wrong. For each correct answer, 10 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program.
III. Integrating Free Rice into BLSA Committees
There are several ways in which BLSA can integrate FreeRice into its already existing activities. This Section will outline three BLSA committees that can use FreeRice as an educational tool to accomplish the committees’ goals. While it would be great to integrate FreeRice into all the committee’s listed below, BLSA can evaluate the pros and cons of adding FreeRice as a component in each committee.
A. Street Law
Throughout the academic year, the Street Law committee visits several local community centers, schools, and detention centers educating students on their Fourth Amendment rights. FreeRice can be used as a learning tool to help educate students, while helping those in need. The last couple of years, BLSA’s Street Law Chairs have expressed an interest in adding a mentorship component to Street Law. This mentorship component can be easily implemented to the already existing structure of the committee. Individual committee members have already reached out to various teens that they regularly see at the centers and schools that they visit. Adding FreeRice to Street Law will give Street Law mentors another tool to connect with the youth on a mentorship level. FreeRice can be used as a learning tool to help educate the kids at the community centers and schools in two different ways: (1) by using the content that is already available on FreeRice.com, FreeRice can be used to test the kids’ knowledge on the basic subject areas, including math, vocabulary, and geography; and (2) by expanding FreeRice’s content to include games that centers on the Fourth Amendment, FreeRice can be used to directly teach students the subject matter that is traditionally presented at Street Law centers. Both goals can be accomplished without much additional work.
(1) Basic FreeRice Subject Areas – Implementing Already Existing Content
FreeRice will allow the Street Law committee to engage the youth in various strategic games and educational quizzes, while teaching them the importance of helping the less fortunate. By using the content that is already available on FreeRice, Street Law mentors can help the kids learn many of the same subjects that the students are learning in school. Because this does not require any additional resources, this stage can be implemented immediately in the community centers and schools that the Street Law committee visits. The only problem that the committee may face is getting the students access to computers. However, many of the community centers and schools that the committee visits have access to computer labs.
(2) Fourth Amendment – Expanding FreeRice’s Content
We are also looking to expand the content of FreeRice to include many other subject areas beyond what now exists on the website. With the help of BLSA, quizzes and games centered on the Fourth Amendment can be added to the expanding content of FreeRice. This will give kids an opportunity to test the knowledge that they have been given during the Street Law sessions. Traditionally, Street Law presenters test individual students by calling on them and asking them various questions regarding the material that has been presented. However, expanding FreeRice’s content to include questions on the Fourth Amendment will allow all the students to test their individual knowledge, while helping donate food to those in need. Students will also be able to engage in friendly competitions against one another – seeing who can get the most questions right, and ultimately who can donate the most rice.
B. Academic Affiars
The Academic Affairs committee has recently announced the implementation of the middle-school initiative – aimed at tutoring middle school students in the Cambridge/Boston area. The Academic Affairs Committee stated that they wanted to focus on helping the students study for various standardized tests, including a standardized test that some students take in order to move on to high school. FreeRice can be used as a learning tool to help achieve these goals.
As mentioned in the previous section, the quizzes and games that are currently found on FreeRice’s website already cover the basic subjects that are covered in all local schools. However, the content of FreeRice can be updated in order to better fit the needs of its users. Therefore, the Academic Affairs Committee will be able to use FreeRice as a tutoring tool to get students prepared for the specific tests that they will encounter.
FreeRice is also looking to expand its content to contain sample ACT, SAT, and LSAT questions. This will help broaden the target audience, allow more students to benefit from FreeRice, and ultimately cause more food to be donated to hungry people around the globe. As with the other committees, no additional costs will be incurred from integrating FreeRice into the Academic Affairs Committee. Many of the schools that the Academic Affairs Committee will visit as part of the middle-school initiative are already equipped with computer labs or in-class computers. Therefore, FreeRice is a convenient and effective solution.
In conclusion, Academic Affairs can successfully implement FreeRice into the committee’s planned activities. Doing so will not only help with the committee’s new middle-school initiative, it will also help accomplish FreeRice’s main two goals: (1) providing free education to everyone and (2) ending world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.
C. Community service Committee
While the other committees may require FreeRice to expand some of its content to be most effective, the Community Service Committee can use and benefit from FreeRice in its current form. The Community Service Committee already goes to local schools and community centers to tutor students, hold reading drives, and serve as mentors. By integrating FreeRice into the activities that the committee already engages in, students will be able to learn and donate food at the same time. Furthermore, FreeRice is a fun learning tool. Committee members can tutor students on the various subjects that are tested on FreeRice, and after the tutoring session the students would be able to test their skills by playing the FreeRice games. FreeRice will help keep the students engaged and will give committee members a structured format to follow when conducting tutoring sessions. Friendly competitions can also be held within each school and across the schools that the committee serves. Students and schools with the highest overall score at the end of the day can be given prizes.
Again, the integration of FreeRice into Community Service activities will be at no extra cost to the Committee, BLSA, or FreeRice. The committee can use FreeRice as it now exists and it can begin using the educational tool immediately.
IV. Adopting an African School: Expanding the Jamaica Project
During the spring term, students in Professor Nesson’s Open Education class participated in a project that connected local school children in Jamaica with Harvard law school students. The connection was done via the Internet through video chat on G-mail. The students met with the kids in Jamaica every week for about an hour. During these meetings, the law school students would teach the Jamaican students a wide array of strategic games (including FreeRice), which the kids would then play. One game that the students had an opportunity to play was Dominoes. After the game finished, the students would then discuss what happened during the game and the different strategies that they used to play. During the weekly meetings, the Jamaican students learned how to think strategically and formed mentorship relationships with the law students.
Because the Jamaica Project was such a success, there have been some calls for its expansion. We believe that it can and should be expanded to countries in Africa. This can easily be done through BLSA’s Africa Summit Committee. Every year, BLSA sends some of its members to Africa so they can visit and engage in cultural exchanges with law schools, Embassies, High Court judges, Human Rights organizations, and local community service groups. The goal of Africa Summit is to expand BLSA’s community and to develop ties to the larger African legal, political, and humanitarian aid communities. Expanding the Jamaica project to Africa through the Africa Summit Committee can help achieve these goals.
The Jamaica project can be easily implemented into the Africa Summit Committee. In the past, all participants of Africa Summit were required to complete a specified number of community service hours prior to departure. Although this is a noble effort, it has not always proven successful in the past, as there often has not been enough approved community service events to cover the amount of hours that were required. In order to solve this problem and to further the goal of being active in the local communities that we visit, this section proposes that the Africa Summit Committee adopt a local school in Africa.
After the Africa Summit Committee Chairs picks a country to visit, Africa Summit participants will choose a local school in that area to “adopt.” In the months leading to departure, participants will engage in weekly virtual meetings with the school. During these meetings, they will teach the students strategic games and any other lessons that they deem appropriate. The Africa Summit participants will also serve as mentors to the African students.
This interactive learning and mentoring environment will last until the participants leave for Africa during Spring Break. As part of the trip, participants will visit the school that they “adopted” and will be able to have real interactions with the African students that they have come to know through the digital learning environment. The African students will get to meet their mentors and teachers and the law students will get to learn more about the country they visited and the people who live there. While this proposal is structured around the Jamaica Project, the extra step of actually meeting the students later on in the year gives all participants something to look forward to. The meeting will prove to be a rewarding experience for all those involved.
V. Conclusion
Both the video proposal and this written proposal have outlined various ways BLSA can use FreeRice to enhance the activities that the organization already engages in. With the help of BLSA, FreeRice can accomplish both of its noble goals. Working together we can help educate our youth and feed the hungry at the same time.
