I’ve played around with the app for a couple of days now, and, yes, I see how it could get addictive. Playing off the spy thriller motif, you’re presented with “missions” that revolve around an action/activism scenario, and give you a green trivia question to answer. There’s a definite social media aspect to it: you can recruit “backers” from your Facebook friends (which you’ll need for higher-level missions), and even get clues from real Timberland Earthkeeper Heroes such as Christopher Swain, Cate Trotter, Sami Nerenberg, and Nate Bastien.

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Earth Day brings out the best (or worst) examples of greenwashing.

I simply ignored most of the PR pitches I got in the last couple of weeks, but one stood out to me as an absolutely ridiculous spin on a product.

I’m going to take a chance and give it more publicity than it’s worth. Here’s the pitch I got:

“Monopoly®: Planet Earth Edition gives fans the chance to buy, sell and trade the earth’s most natural resources, landscapes, and animals Monopoly® style.”

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The Red-billed Oxpecker is a member of the starling and myna family Sturndidae. It is native to the Savannah of sub-Saharan Africa, from the Central African Republic east to Sudan and south to northern and eastern South Africa.

It is basically an insect eater, but gets its name from its habit of feeding on ticks and other insects living on the hides of large animals. While it is claimed that it can eat up to 100 engorged ticks a day this is often secondary as its favourite food is blood which it sources by opening tick bites with its beak. It is even claimed it will stop wounds from healing to ensure an ongoing supply of blood.

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The Natural Resources Defense Council and Eco Consulting published this month a very valuable report on the energy use of game consoles and we can use them more effectively to save energy (and thus reduce our contribution to global warming). You can see the full report here.

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Or do you think you’re sophisticated because you read a bunch of books and pay attention to world news? Then test your knowledge of geography with these quick and fun online games, you nerd!

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The UN World Food Program has come up with an ingenious game, Free Rice. You are presented with four or five definitions for a word and with each correct answer, 20 grains of rice are donated to feed the hungry around the world.

It didn’t take me long to work up to 1080 grains of rice and I had the option to set the game to remember my computer and add to the total.

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What’s unique about the vocabulary-building game at Freerice.com — and the reason we think you should give it a gander — is that as you play you’re donating rice to feed hungry people through international aid agencies. A sister site of Poverty.com, Freerice.com is a fun way to help humanity while you improve your language prowess.

It’s the perfect scheme: hook students and aspiring socialites on a vocabulary-building game so captivating that advertisers will pay big bucks to market on the site, then use the marketing profits to feed hungry people around the world through international aid agencies. Excellent…

The word generator used in the game matches your skill level. Thus, whether you’re a scholarly lexical wizard or a sixth-grader with some savoir faire, the game will give you words appropriate to challenge you at your current vocabulary level. This makes the game is a good tool for people of all ages — from the young student to the college grad studying for the GRE to the person simply looking to beef up her or his vocabulary.

Here’s how it works. For each word, you get four possible multiple-choice definitions. For every word you get right, Freerice.com donates ten grains of rice and raises your vocabulary level slightly. If you get a word wrong, the correct definition appears and the game offers you a slightly easier word.

And remember, helping to alleviate hunger helps the environment and other species as well. As we mentioned in 7 Unorthodox Ways to Help Save Gorillas from Extinction, the threat of hunger often forces people to adopt unsustainable methods of survival, like poaching, exhaustively depleting natural resources, encroaching on new land in search of further resources, and relying on IMF loans to buy pesticides and genetically copyright seeds.

So fire up your vocabulary and give the game at Freerice.com a shot. It’s a fun way to tickle the gray cells, build your vocabulary, and better the world while you’re at it — one grain of rice at a time.

Photo Source:

A bowl of boiled rice | Flickr

imagine… | Flickr