Though lasting less than 200 years, large-scale rice production in South Carolina and Georgia "probably represented the most significant utilization of the tidewater zone for crop agriculture ever attained in the United States." Rice is a specialty crop where successful cultivation relied heavily upon "adaptation" to nature via imported intellectual capital and the wholesale "manipulation" of nature made possible by a considerable investment of human labor. Rice planting is a useful topic for geographic inquiry by students. True, there is an academic imperative in the form of state standards and indicators, but other important motivations exist. First, the student confronts a blending of both temporal and spatial differentiation by examining (often competing) African and European histories and geographies. Second, historic texts and landscapes must be contextualized and visualized. This includes engaging primary sources and developing spatial thinking skills. In this article, the authors: (1) provide a brief history of Carolina rice production; (2) identify and explain spatial thinking connections with the topic; and (3) connect the previous two by guiding the reader through a classroom exercise where students learn the complexities of rice planting by constructing a "huge hydraulic machine," a rice plantation. (Contains 8 figures, 1 table and 2 notes.)