Written by the Web Team
Grade 5 and Kindergarten students learned to be RICEponsible or to value rice more in their recent culminating activities in support to the National Year of Rice (NYR 2013).
More than 100 grade 5 students of the Maquiling School, Inc.in Los Baños, Laguna, acknowledged themselves as consumers and pledged to conserve rice after a short talk on NYR 2013. 
On the other hand, about 20 kindergarten students of Keys Grade School in Mandaluyong City, paid tribute to rice farmers through a dance, song, poetry reading, poster making, and fashion show.
“Over lunch, my students have kept on reminding each other not to leave even a single grain of rice on their plates,” said Maria Teresa Peralta, a teacher from MSI and a former Philippine Rice Research Institute staff.
Peralta also said that NYR 2013 has added value to the agriculture-related lessons that she usually teaches making her students understand the importance of agriculture especially rice in our country.
Their culminating activity includes food fair, NYR overview, Panatang Makapalay, and a rice-related quiz contest.
Meanwhile, students made colorful posters with a theme Farmers are Heroes to show their appreciation to farmers who produce the rice on their plates.
“We conducted this activity because we want the students to learn that everything they have in their tables and in their house underwent a long process,” Jazmine Mara, a teacher from the Keys Grade School, said.
Students also sang Bruno Mar’s Count on Me to let the farmers know that the farmers can also count on them.
They also designed their farm-inspired clothes and presented them in a fashion show. Most of them dressed like a farmer and they were in their hats, long sleeves, pair of pants, and slippers. One of the students also dressed like a carabao.
“They had a first-hand experience of the whole rice production process as they planted rice in our school and had the planting experience in the International Rice Research Institute,” Mara also said.
Keys Grade school offers a social studies curriculum which focuses on the Keys community, family and rice. Experiential learning is given emphasis in introducing the concepts such as rice.
