The Rice Project

Annotated Websites

Click here to go to the main page for the Rice Project

Click here to go to the resource page for the Rice Project

The following websites have been used with the eZediaMX project related to “When Rice was King” from the National Park Service.

Title: Teaching with Historic Places: Lesson Plan Index
Source: National Park Service: National Register of Historic Places
Site address: http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/standards.htm
Information on the site:
The following information has been taken directly from the NPS website.

Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) has developed more than seventy-five classroom-ready lesson plans on topics and places across the curriculum. In an effort to help teachers meet their students' educational goals, TwHP has categorized its lesson plans according to the United States History Standards for Grades 5-12. Part of the National Standards for History developed by the National Center for History in the Schools, these voluntary standards promote historical thinking skills and understanding.

Most of the TwHP lessons are now available on the Web; these lessons have been marked by underlining their titles. For more information on lessons not yet available on-line, contact TwHP; you can also view the entire collection according to state, topic, or time period.

Era 1: Three Worlds Meet (Beginnings to 1620)
Era 2: Colonization and Settlement (1585-1763)
Era 3: Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s)
Era 4: Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Era 5: Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877)

For this project, please go to Era 4, Standard 2 for the lesson When Rice was King.

Title: When Rice was King
Source: National Park Service: National Register of Historic Places
Site address: http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/3rice/3rice.htm
Information on the site:
This address will take you directly to the lesson on rice plantations and their relationship to American history. The site begins with an overview of the lesson and a table of contents providing teachers with links to the inquiry questions, the historical context, and the core resources, including maps, readings, images, and activities, as well as supplementary resources, to teach the unit of study.

Title: The Rice Museum: Georgetown, South Carolina
Source: The Rice Museum
Site address: http://www.ego.net/us/sc/myr/rice/index.htm
Information on the site:
The National Park Service has linked this resource to their lesson on teaching with historic places entitled, When Rice was King. They have classified the lesson under Era 4: Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), history standard 2: How the industrial revolution, increasing immigration, the rapid expansion of slavery, and the westward movement changed the lives of Americans and led toward regional tensions. The intention of the lesson is to illustrate these concepts through allowing students to “investigate early rice plantations in Georgetown, South Carolina, to learn how rice cultivation transformed the native environment and promoted the South’s dependence on a plantation economy.”

At the bottom of the first page for the Rice Museum are four links which provide a great deal of valuable information:
(1)    Brief History of Georgetown
(2)    Rise of the Rice Culture
(3)    Collapse of the Society
(4)    Planter Lifestyles

The four links will give readers a concise overview of the information from the perspective of the region.

Title: RiceRomp
Source: US Rice Producers Association
Site address: http://www.riceromp.com/
Information on the site:
Dedicated to promoting the importance of rice, the US Rice Producers Association has put together a handy site of information and lessons for teachers. The main page for the site gives users the opportunity to branch to student activities or teacher resources. Under teaching resources, there are lessons that focus primarily on grades four through seven, but can easily be adapted up or down for other grades. The lessons are organized under the headings: math, social studies, science, and health. The lessons all use the theme of rice and provide a brief study guide with activities, extended learning opportunities, and vocabulary.

The resources at this site provide educators with the opportunity to link their study of the historical issues as illustrated by the lesson, When Rice was King, to other aspects. In addition, the social studies lessons at the site give teachers readily-available mini-lessons that could be used to simplify and expand some of the concepts introduced in the larger unit of study and link to current issues, as well as global perspectives.

Note: If you print the lesson pages, the print will be hard to see as the pages have a colored background. Taking a few seconds to alter the print properties on your printer dialog box will allow you to turn off the background and it will print quite clearly.

By clicking on the Social Studies link, you will see the following lessons that are available to teachers:
4th Grade Social Studies
History: How has rice been produced throughout history?
Economics: How does rice from the field get changed into ready to eat rice, rice snacks and cereals?
History: HOW do we know about RICE? WHO first discovered RICE? WHERE did it come from? DOES anyone know?
Sociology: What is life like for Gulf Coast rice farmers?

5th Grade Social Studies
Sociology: How is rice used in food from different cultures?
Sociology: What are some cultural rituals related to rice?
History: What is the history of rice in the United States?
History: Do you know how civilization developed? Man’s urge to explore changed and linked different civilizations. Observe how rice cultivation was affected by this.
Economics: How is harvested rice made ready to eat?
Geography: In what states is rice grown? What caused these states to begin growing rice?

6th Grade Social Studies
History: What is the history of the consumption of rice?
Economics: How many different varieties of rice are there?
Geography: Why does California have a higher rice yield than the other rice producing states?
Economics: How can rice straw be disposed of in an economical and safe way?
Geography: What are some varieties of rice grown in different regions of the world?
Economics: How is rice prepared for milling and commercial processing?
Economics: What do rice farmers do to maintain the standard of quality in the rice they produce?
Economics: What are some other uses for rice?

7th Grade Social Studies
Geography: How is rice produced in the United States?
Sociology: Rice has a long history. People in ancient times associated every natural phenomenon with some higher spiritual power, or some deity. Can you think of any such associations with rice?
Sociology: How can rice feed an ever-growing global population?
Economics: What will happen to world rice production in 2002? What will affect the amount of rice the United States will export?
History: How long have people been eating rice?
Economics: How is the price of U.S. export rice determined by the world market price. What determines the world market price for rice?
Economics: How is the price of rice from the farmer to the miller determined?
Geography: Where in the United States is rice grown?

Title: The Golden Crescent
Source: National Park Service
Site address: http://www.cr.nps.gov/goldcres/index.html
Information on the site:
The following has been taken directly from the address provided above. It gives a summary of what constitutes the Golden Crescent and an overview of the information that will be available at this site.

“The Golden Crescent, running in a wide swath along the Atlantic Coast from Savannah to Cape Canaveral and inland towards Tallahassee, is remarkably rich in history and prehistory. Following thousands of years of Native American occupation, this area witnessed many of the first North American encounters among Europeans, Africans, and native inhabitants. A two-hundred-year-long period of small settlements, mission-building, colonial warfare, and pirate attacks gave way in the late eighteenth century to the beginnings of the plantation system. Spain's cession of Florida in 1821 finally made all of the crescent part of the United States. Rice and cotton plantations, with their interdependent white and black populations, dominated the antebellum years. After the Civil War, the Golden Crescent underwent additional transformations - Reconstruction, the shift to sharecropping, a resort boom, a lumber boom, and the struggle for civil rights. The interactions of Native American, African, and European groups in the crescent have profoundly influenced the course of American and world history.”

For extended information on rice and cotton production:
http://www.cr.nps.gov/goldcres/cultural/planthome.html

For information just on the issue of coastal rice production:
http://www.cr.nps.gov/goldcres/cultural/plantrice.html

For maps available at this site:
http://www.cr.nps.gov/goldcres/maps/maproom.html

Title: Rice
Source: USDA On Line Photography Center Photo Research
Site address: http://www.usda.gov/oc/photo/opc-rice.htm
Information on the site:
At the time of this commentary, there are 18 full-color photographs available for students to use in projects. The photos focus on rice production in the US and show fields and machinery, mostly at harvest time. There is one photo, 71cs0101, that shows the contrast with rice harvesting in India. Each photo has information available on what it is showing.

Check out the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) site for many, many valuable resources that can be used by teachers and students. The USDA has set up a completely separate site for children called the USDA for Kids at: http://www.usda.gov/news/usdakids/index.html

Title: USA Rice Federation
Source: USA Rice Federation
Site address: http://www.riceprocessing.com/
Information on the site:
The USA Rice Federation has provided a concise summary of information on various topics related to rice. The information is organized under three broad headings:

All about rice
History, cultivation, milling, farming ecology, consumption, production, types/forms (you’ll find pictures of each type here), nutrition, legends
Processing with rice
US rice consumption, milling, forms of rice, USDA grades, nutrition, research database, source list
Research
Data base with 1000 entries on rice research since 1988

Title: Producers Rice Mill, Inc.
Source: Producers Rice Mill, Inc.
Site address: http://www.producersrice.com/
Information on the site:
The information at this site is provided by a private corporation which specializes in rice milling. Clicking on the “Rice” link on their main page will take you to short pieces on: history, cultivation, milling, types, and facts. The cultivation link has a nice summary on the modern process of rice cultivation in the US that acts as a strong contrast for the production of rice in other less-developed countries. The milling link summarizes the processes involved. The firm has also provided a picture of the large tractor-trailers loaded with rice lined up to unload. It gives students some idea of the immensity of this process.

Title: The Handbook of Texas Online: Rice Culture
Source: “The Handbook of Texas Online is a joint project of The General Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas State Historical Association.”
Site address: http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/RR/afr1.html
Information on the site:
The article at this site briefly traces the history of the commercial production of rice in Texas.

Title: AskAsia: Rice - the Global Crop – Mini-Unit
Source: “The Asia Society is a national nonprofit, nonpartisan public educational organization dedicated to increasing American understanding of Asia and broadening the dialogue between Americans and Asians.” Funding for the organization is provided by the Freeman Foundation.
Site address: http://www.askasia.org/teachers/Instructional_Resources/Lesson_Plans/Indonesia/LP_indonesia_1.htm
Information on the site:
The AskAsia website is a major source of information and resources to assist teachers and students to understand Asia. Of particular interest for the purpose of complementing the activities from the National Park Service is a mini-unit developed by Nancy Van Ravenswaay that is available there. Ms. Ravenswaay has pulled together a unit that contrasts rice cultivation in Asia, represented by Indonesia in this case, and the US, with a focus on California. Pictures, activities, and handouts are provided that cover a study of the rice plant and an investigation of rice cultivation in two different sets of circumstances.

Title: American Memory
Source: Library of Congress
Site address: http://memory.loc.gov/
Information on the site:
The Library of Congress has put together a truly phenomenal resource called the American Memory site. Every student and teacher should be aware of its existence. The American Memory site contains resources from the historical collections of the national digital library. When you go to this site, click on “Collection Finder” and you will be able to search for a variety of resources that will greatly enrich student understanding on many topics. For example, by clicking on the subtopic of agriculture and searching using the term “rice”, I was able to find old photos showing activities at rice festivals in Louisiana. By going to geography and then using “rice” as a search term, I was able to find panorama photos of rice fields in Hawaii and Louisiana, among others.

Title: Rice Culture on the Ogeechee
Source: Toward Racial Equity: Harper’s Weekly Reports 1857-1874
Site address: http://blackhistory.harpweek.com/7Illustrations/Culture/RiceCulture.htm
Information on the site:
This link references an edition of Harper’s Weekly Reports from January 5, 1867 near Savannah, Georgia.

"65 km. south of Manila, Riceworld is located at the International Rice Research Insitute (IRRI) in Los Banos, Laguna, Philippines. It was created in 1994 with a generous donation from the German government to serve as a museum and learning center for the thousands of people that visit IRRI each year. Since its inception, it has steadily increased in popularity. In 1997, there were more than 120,000 visitors, including farmers, heads of state, members of international organizations, schoolchildren, members of the NGO community, students, visiting scientists, and the general public. The majority of visitors are Filipino schoolchildren, but due to IRRI’s international reputation, Riceworld receives visitors from all over the world."

Title: RiceWeb
Source: "Produced by the Internation Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Phillipines, in association with the West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA), Cote d'Ivoire, and the Centro Internacional Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Columbia."
Site Address: http://www.riceweb.org/

Topics covered at this site focus on the following list taken direction from RiceWeb:
- history and general information
- feeding the world
- production and trade
- envrionments of rice farms
- the plant and how it grows
- the geography of production
- research
- terminology and literature

Title: International Rice Research Institute
Source: Same
Site Address:http://www.irri.org/
The name says it all. There are absolutely beautiful full-color posters and photos available at this site providing an international perspective on the topic. Even if you don't want to know about the research side of things, check out the multimedia resources.

There are links to papers and presentations on biotechnology from a variety of perspectives. Many, we probably haven't considered previously. The site would be a useful resource for considering the future of rice production, as these people have obviously devoted a great deal of thought to that topic already and the implications of various decisions.

Title: Some rice with that?
Source: Article from free-lance journalist attending a workshop at IRRI
Site Address:http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/rice/story.htm
While this journalist is recounting their experience at the IRRI rice workshop, this single webpage acts as an overview of where rice has come from and where it is going. Taking a look at some of those issues may help put the agricultural biotechnology issues into some form of concept map for you. This would probably best be used to look at the future of rice production.

Title: The State of Food and Agriculture, 2000: Part I - World Review
Source: FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Site Address:http://www.fao.org/docrep/x4400e/x4400e04.htm#TopOfPage
The myriad of issues that the FAO deals with is fascinating reading. Use this for the future of rice production. Also, use it for anything where you need a global perspective on the challenges facing feeding the world's population.

Title: The Food Timeline
Source: Morris County Library
Site Address: http://www.gti.net/mocolib1/kid/food2.html
I don't care if you aren't interested in rice. You do eat and you might just be very interested to see when some of the common things we take for granted came into being. You've got a good assortment of links at this one site that will take you through historical, economic, and social issues associated with food. See the Food Timeline. There are a lot of items that we think are part of our century which have been around for a lot of centuries!!

The Rice Project

Annotated Websites

Last edited: October 6, 2002