Tuesday, April 16, 2013

New Zealand Skype


What did you think about the Skype with New Zealand?  Do you feel you learned something about their culture in comparison to ours? What do you think they learned from us? What did you learn?
(Other than we need new wifi) :)

34 comments:

  1. Skyping with the boys from New Zealand was a really cool experience! It was interesting to hear how different their way of eating is than ours. The comparison of portion sizes and the law in New York that regulates portions sizes really opened my eyes to how often Americans overeat. They were all shocked to hear how often we eat out and how many restaurants and fast food chains we have, something I thought was an every where occurrence. It was interesting to me to hear that the boy who visited the USA did not eat out. It was also interesting to learn that they still have PE in high school. I think this would be a great idea for Americans to adopt. I really liked seeing how different our cultures are and I think America has many things they can learn from New Zealand and other countries to make us a more healthy nation.

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  2. I participated in the class discussion with the New Zealand students on Tuesday and got to hear and compare our habits to theirs. During the discussion Ben mentioned that a new Carl's Jr. opened near them and that he couldn't finish even a small portion. This surprised me the most thinking that an athlete who plays over three different sports can't finish a portion that someone here half his age could finish. Their instructor also mentioned the NYC ban on soft drinks that are larger than 16 ounces and I got to add some of my thoughts as to what little effects it will have on Americans and this brought up the point that refills over there actually cost money. That lead to the discussion of competition amongst fast food restaurants and this I think is the root of America's obesity, the quest to get the most customers lead fast food restaurants to go to extreme measures to get food out there for the "best deal". Overall it was an eye opening experience for the little that we got to talk to him due to connection problems.

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  3. Skyping with the New Zealand students was a very cool experience. I enjoyed getting to talk to them and learning about their food and exercise habits. My question was Do you have any fast food restaurants within walking distance of your school? They thought about it and replied with do you guys know what KFC is? And we all replied with "YES". LOL. But that was the only one they have near their school as we have sonic, subway, taco bell, Wendy's, Starbucks, chipolte, McDonald's, and etc. So we obviously eat fast food a lot and always have big portion sizes and they say they do not even know what a "super-sized" meal is, which to us is very strange but that's because we super-size everything in Texas. They think we are fat and eat too much and do not work out enough which is pretty true just for Texas ha. Courtney Little told me they still have P.E. in school which is pretty interesting where as we do ot have to take P.E. every year just get a total of 2 years over our 4 year experience of highschool.Overall I really enjoyed talking with these guys and I think it would fun to do it again sometime soon.

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  4. I enjoyed the skype yesterday. I was disappointed that we lost connection. I don't recall anything about there culture, other than that they appeared to be wearing uniforms and they don't eat at restaraunts as often. I don't think they learned much from us, other than that we eat at restaurants a lot. I think some of our question answerers were misinformed. They talked about super sizing and said that we have that here. I had a problem with this as super sizing doesn't really exist any more since the movie Super Size Me came out. I learned that people in other countries, even English speaking countries, tend to excercise more and eat healthier than us. Overall, I enjoyed the experience yesterday.

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  5. Skyping with New Zealand yesterday was a great experience! I never really noticed how unhealthy the United States is compared to other countries. I think the root of our obesity problem is the competition between the fast food chains as they mentioned. Each restaurant is trying to compete to give more for a small amount to earn more customers using things like dollar menus, and it works. Here in the U.S. we have free refills, and large portion sizes We also workout the bare-minimum and do one sport at a time, and eat whenever we can(which is easy to do considering there is a food joint on every corner). In new Zealand, they do things differently. There, they hardly ever eat out, their portion sizes are much smaller, they are required to have p.e. each year they are in school, they play multiple sports, and the cheapest thing they have on their fast food menus is five dollars. I think the U.S. cares more about the money involved, instead of our own health and no one really realizes this. I think countries like New Zealand are really good influences, and we as Americans, have a lot to learn from them.

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  6. I really liked our skype session yesterday. I felt that it was good for us to interact with other people, especially people who could teach us about a different culture and how to make ourselves healthier and giving us tips on how to do that. I liked how one person asked what did they think we should do to be healthier and they told us to shorten our meal portion since we like to get big meal portions. I didn't know that New Zealand was a really healthy country and how they didn't have alot of fast food restaurants around every corner like we do here and how they put an emphasis on being active. The kids that we talked too, they told us that each of them played at least 3 sports or more and that proves that they eat healthy (cause athletes have to stay in shape) and have are very healthy. I also noticed that they liked to eat healthy because on a daily basis, they said for lunch, they mostly eat sandwiches and alot of different fruits. I think that America could learn alot from, not only New Zealand, but from other healthy countries and really need to take into consideration their tips and what we need to do to better ourselves as a country.

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  7. I was taken aback by how their P.E. courses are spread out in comparison to ours. Food is an important factor to overall health, but so is physical activity.
    The students from New Zealand said that they are required to take P.E. each year, at least twice a week. That to me is so much better than cramming 1.5 credits within the first couple of years and dropping recorded physical activity for the next two years like our high school does. This especially affects those who are not in athletics/drill team/etc. School work takes up a lot of time. I believe it is hard to find time to exercise after school.
    Also their portions are smaller. It was funny when we asked what their school lunches looked like, and they said food somewhere a long the lines of a banana, some bread, etc. Our lunches are packed with unneeded calories.

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  8. I really liked to be able to skype with the New Zealand students. It was really interesting to hear their opinions about America. One thing I found interesting that one of the boys that had been to America said that our portion sizes are way bigger than there's. I think they found it interesting to learn that it's pretty normal to get free refills here, whereas it isn't there. I definitely learned a lot about their culture, like how they play so many sports and they are required to do some sort of physical activities all of their years in high school or college. It is really interesting to be able to see just how different we are and how much more healthy New Zealand is as a whole. I would love to be able to live in New Zealand and see just how in shape they are and how much exercise they do. I also really liked how they eat at home a lot rather than going out, and that they don't have many fast food places. They rarely eat fast food or eat out which is a huge difference from America. Personally, I think that we need to learn from New Zealand and become more like them.

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  9. It was only last summer that I had embarked on a journey to discover the unique culture and people of New Zealand. I had the grand opportunity to visit the small town of Ngatea and stay with a delightful family of authentic Kiwis for three days.
    What this new experience over Skype with the New Zealand students made me think about was just how educationally uninvolved the United States is in other foreign affairs. Not just in the means of war and total world domination- but actually caring about the people's health and well being in a country across the globe enough to give outside concern and take interest in helping give new perspective of the obesity epidemic.
    I found their keen knowledge of our state politics, as far as the 'Big Gulp' Ban, particularly interesting as well as their ideas about the relation between our socioeconomic state and obesity.
    Talking about the similarities and differences between our schools made me think more into depth about the availability of fast, unhealthy foods as well. If we have almost 3500 students attending our school- imagine how much extra time, money, and labor would be required to make lunches healthier opposed to their approximately 2500 less children to feed.
    In retrospect, while exploring the town of Ngatea, we were able to check out the school environment and only now- after the Skype- do I recognize a definite contrast between New Zealand schools and ours- the close proximity of fast food chains. The facility we were brought to was nearly a mile out of the town from the closest restaurant (none of which had a drive through by the way)- far different than our 2 minute amble down to sonic or taco bell.
    It seems their culture puts much more pressure in the separation of food-commercial, educational, and residential areas. And they have the ability to of course- about half of the country has less than 1 person per square km according to the population density in 2006.
    I don't think we have found the solution to all our problems yet, but international communication and collaboration at such an early stage is definitely a start.

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  10. I found it very eye opening due to the fact that their very active in the UK. They did not have many food chains and that in order to have a refill on a drink you would need to pay extra, rather than here it is free. Again, they are very active and well rounded in many sport and activities. Having one visit in America he was willing to tell us that our portion size was x3 as big as theirs. That we are aware that America has an obesity problems and we are finding ideas on how to improve America and the food industry. That America is too overly developed and modernize to always have instant food rather than wait. We are too accustomed of our portion sizes that the next generation wont know any better and wont know what size of meal is appropriate.

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  11. Skyping with students from New Zealand really gave me a new perspective on how diets are so different in other parts of the world as compared to the U.S. For example their lunch menu seemed healthy and plain that included apples, sandwiches and crackers. While the menu in our school is endless from Chick-fil-A to Nachos with Cheese. One of the things I found interesting was that their P.E was a requirement for all seven years of high school and middle school while here it's only a year and a half. Also, it was surprising to know how what we consider a one serving size meal here in America is considered too big to eat in one serving in New Zealand. Also, they are involved in a lot more beachy activites such as wakeboarding or swimming which is a really healthy thing but our activities are usually inside gyms. Also, I felt like their meals were more family oriented with the whole family eating at the dinner table at night everyday while as Americans we feel the need to have a restaurant meal or an easy quick meal for dinner. Overall it was a great experience to know about a different culture from across the globe.

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    1. i am new operator on Skype like very much tochat with anyone in new zeland from austinmoorea689

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  12. It was interesting to find out that family dinners were highly valued in their culture. Now it's also important to famlies in America, but not as much to my family. Most the time I don't eat with my family, I eat 30 minutes to an hour later than them. Also we don't sit together, we're scattered all over the house during dinner.I was a little shocked to find out that they have only one fast food place within walking distance of their schoo. While at Coppell, we have anywhere from 9-11 fast food places within walking distance of our school. It didn't surprise me that their portion sizes are defiantely smaller than ours, but i was surprised when they said that they have to pay for refills. I've never heard of the before. Over all it was a pretty cool to see the differences we have from them, like our food and culture. I loved the experience we got from skyping them.

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  13. I thought the skpye call was so interesting a cool. It was interesting to hear someone from another country tell us their perception of us. I enjoyed asking them questions like how many PE credits they are required to have. We only have to have 1.5 and they have to take it every year. I think alot can be learned from looking at how other countries live their lives. They seem to have less access to fast food unlike us. However, I got the vibe that grocery shopping and obtaining fresh produce is about the same. We both only go about once a week to the store. They seemed to have an impression that we do not work out as much us but I think if told them how many gyms were in the area they would be shocked. I really enjoyed talking to them. It was really fun.

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  14. Getting to have a discussion with a class in New Zealand (via Skype) was pretty neat. They told us about how they have only one fast food restaurant within their vicinity of their school which is shocking especially in comparison of the number of places we have near CHS. They also mentioned how a Carl Jr. fast food restaurant recently opened up near them and one of the boys said that he could barely finish just the small order from there. I thought that maybe in their culture there is more focus on having enough instead of having an excess amount of food than necessary. I was shocked when they mentioned how they have to pay for refills. If businesses here in Dallas started to implement that rule, many people would be pretty upset about it. I found what they had told us about what they might eat in the cafeteria pretty interesting. We do have meal options (which aren’t fresh, delicious or healthy either) but on top of that we have a school store filled with every snack you can possibly find. If surveyed, many of the students at our school get little to no vegetable or fruit supplements every day during lunch. On exercise, we have to fulfill credits for only a year and a half through our four years of high school while they have gym twice a week for fifty minutes and if I’m mistaken, more if they play a certain sport. I know many of our students can get those PE credits simply by doing online PE which stresses nutrition and exercise but it simply doesn’t work. Many people tell me that they often just plug in numbers to show that they “worked out” that day when they didn’t. It’s such a fascinating difference and there’s certainly so much we can do to help the obesity problem here in Dallas (and the rest of the United States). Before this healthy challenge in anatomy class, I chose to divert my attention away from the issue of obesity-- today during dinner at a restaurant; I kind of noticed how prevalent the issue is.

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  15. I thought it was a good idea for thier schools to make PE manditory for every year and not just a year and a half like our schools. Also along with their PE credits they play sports and do other activities like surfing which pretty much keeps them way more active than many Americans. I think their perspectives on Americans may have changed a little since the kids at Coppell are farly fit but not everyone in America looks like Coppell.

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  16. The New Zealand guys were very fun to talk to, besides the fact that the girls would giggle at everything they would say because of their One Direction accents. I'm joking, they were very informative gentlemen representing their country fairly well. The facts that they always eat dinner with their family at a designated table, rarely eat a fast food meal in a week, barely have P.E. classes (but they are mandatory) besides sports teams (2 days a week for 50 minutes), have fast food products at an expensive price, and have a justified concept on balancing exercise and eating healthy meals than we Americans. We probably provided better explanations on our meal plans such as once in while eating with our parents at our dinner table for meals, having inexpensive and cheap fast food products accessible to any person possessing only an American dollar, having for a few more dollars a giant portion size of a meal because, as always at least in Texas, everything's bigger in Texas, eating by ourselves most of the time for our meals, and how some American food is so filled with substances that shouldn't ever be thought to be put in food. It's good to see that a person from New Zealand and maybe around the world that the average human being on this Earth isn't as symmetrical as the world they live in.

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  17. Even though I wasn't there personally, I feel as though communication with any other opinion out side of our selves or outside of their, persons could be an incredibly enriching experience due to the fact that we could share our views with each other and learn about our respective cultures. Furthermore accents are hilarious and are usually enjoyed by all.

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  18. Skyping with the New Zeland students was a really cool experience. It was certainly different to hear a different opinion about our culture, and how they find some things "weird" that we do. For example, they thought it was strange how we usually get refills for free, because over there they have to pay. This just shows how much there is a cultural gap between the two countries. As a foreigner, right when I moved here, I found a lot of things weird too but now I'm just so used to it that everything seems normal. For me, I feel like the biggest social difference is how food portions are so much larger here and usually cheaper too. It was really funny too how they made fun of our "yall" haha. Overall, it was a great experience, and I would love to do it again!

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  20. Haha Well after cringing through that embarrassment with the new zealand guys, i've come to full realization that most American teenagers lack sociability and are beyond ignorant when it comes to food and nutrition. I’ve learned that the New Zealand culture has much more respect for their food, and how its prepared. In comparison to us, I think we let them know how much we really don't know, and how at a loss for words we all are, by contributing a large sum of “YEAHHS” and “OHHS”, and providing little information on Americans stance on nutrition.
    I have taken in much from this skype experience, and it has aided my furtherance in breaking out of this bounty of oblivion. haha

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  21. This whole idea is honestly so cool to me! I think it’s great that people are that interested in what's going on in other countries other than their own. One thing I did notice was how corrupt America is when it come to things they value. For example, the New Zealand boys said they play sports mainly for fun and their coaches were all volunteer teachers. In America, sports are taken way more serious to the point were its not about have fun rather it about winning and getting money. Its sad that we value victory over enjoyment. I also learned that they are very active and healthy compared to us. While they have 2 out of 9 students that have eaten at a fast food restaurant in the past week, we has 11 out of 13. They definitely learned that sports have a big impact on our lives and that we are very fast moving but lazy people as a whole. Overall America needs to work on our health and we need better sources on how to do this.

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  22. This was my second time skyping with the students from New Zealand and this time around I learned a lot more things about their lifestyle. It struck out to me how their sports are played as sports and not for money or scholarships. In America sports are directly correlated with money while in New Zealand they are for enjoyment purposes mostly. Also, I feel as if they have more time to do things like make their lunch and walk to school but in our area we are accustomed to just going to the nearest restaurant to buy dinner or lunch and using our car for everything, We have made our lifestyles to where we think we are busy to make lunch or exercise. Also, their life is more traditional while our life as become more commercialized.

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  23. I thought skyping with the students from New Zealand was a very cool experience. I am very glad that I got the opportunity to participate because it was fun to hear about the different things they do and how many activities they take part in. Our cultures are different in many ways including the different fast food restaurants that we have available compared to the few that they have. We talked a lot about American obesity and a few resolutions to the problem. I think they learned that we aren't as active in America as they are in New Zealand. We rarely walk or ride our bike and they walk all of the time. I learned that they have something called tea time which is just a break between 2nd and 3rd period at school. I also learned that they don't have football, but they play so many other sports.

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  24. This was my first time Skyping with the students from New Zealand, and it was such a cool experience! I found it so interesting to learn about their lifestyles and their values. It's so awesome that we have the ability to communicate with students from other countries, and learn about what they think about us. I've always known that other countries think Americans are "fat" and "lazy," but I have never really paid any attention to it. However, during the Skype session, it was brought to my attention that compared to other countries, this could not be more true! What really stuck out to me the most was when we did that spontaneous poll to see how many kids in each classroom had eaten fast food within the past week. When we did our poll, and found out that 11 out of the 13 kids had eaten fast food within the past week, I wasn't surprised at all-in fact I found that to be completely normal. But then when the New Zealand boys did their poll and only 2 of the 9 students had eaten fast food within the past week, my mind was BLOWN. I believe that something needs to be changed about this fast food epidemic in the United States, and taking tips from other countries on how to do this, would definitely not be a bad idea!

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  25. It's not very often that we get the opportunity to meet and talk with students from another country entirely. Skyping with the students from New Zealand was not only really cool, but also really enlightening. Exchanging thoughts and ideas on food, sports, and college was fun because we got the chance to view things from their perspective. It appears to me that their culture is more active and socially oriented. Personally, I think they learned that not every American is unhealthy like the generalization, but at the same time they learned not to approach food like we do. Lastly, I learned that we are very blessed to have a multitude of colleges and universities we can attend, and that making your own food is worth the time.

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  26. I thought Skype with New Zealand was really neat! It was interesting to get a different perspective on the U.S and I definitely learned something about their culture in comparison to ours. In comparison to our school, not only are they required to take P.E but in addition they basically have recess every day. Another major difference was there coaches and the variety of sports they play. There coaches are merely volunteer teachers while at our school being a coach is there job. Also I’ve noticed that even though there is still competition within their sports, the purpose for playing them is more for fun and enjoyment rather than solely to win. I was really surprised that they really only have one main fast food place nearby whereas we have fast food places on every corner. The ratio of New Zealand students who had eaten fast food in the last week was considerably less than the ratio of Coppell students. I think New Zealand is setting a good example for the rest of the world with their overall diet and exercise and it would be beneficial for America to begin to adapt to some of the things in their culture.

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  27. I skyped with the New Zealand students during our last opportunity to skype as well as this time and I really enjoyed it! It interesting to get to see how different places in the world can be. The students seem so similar (besides their accents!) to us, yet their way of life is so different from ours... and so much healthier! I think their way of life has many aspects America should look into adopting. For example, the emphasis on people playing sports instead of watching them. It was hard for me to comprehend how they had such a big rugby game coming up and they had to bring in bleachers for people to watch. If that were occurring in America, the game would take place in some huge stadium and tickets would be extremely expensive. I think America has a lot of things to learn when it comes to our obesity crisis and the best way to find answers is to look to other countries.

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  28. I took part in the both the first and second meetings with the New Zealand students. I would say that the second encounter with their students was much more informative than the first meeting because this time the conversation flowed much smoother than the first. One of the biggest things I took from this meeting is how ignorant some of us are to the problems around us regarding health and nutrition in the United States. For someone to say that there isn't a problem with obesity here when more than 80% of us, a more active group of Americans, had fast food within the last week compared to their 22%. Since I have been in athletics these past four years I thought it was very interesting to hear about their athletic programs and how they go about their schedule when it comes to their respective sports. Overall I thought this meeting was much more productive because of the amount of information that was shared on both sides and I am very pleased to have been a part of it again.

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  29. It was really interesting to talk to the students from New Zealand and learn not only about what they do, but what they think of the US. I found it really interesting that they do so many sports in school since in high school over here, people mostly stick to one sport. Even there schedules seemed different and more activity-orientated in comparison to ours. There lives in general seem to be quite active. I think they found it really surprising that the athletic coaches here sometimes only teach athletics, where as their coaches do it voluntarily, which was neat. Even their teacher seemed very informed, which I liked. I also liked that they showed us their fields, which were amazing! I think they learned that our lives here are somewhat sedentary and even lazy in some ways. They understood that we do eat fast food a lot, where as they tend to have family meals more often. Overall, I loved that we were able to do this and actually talk to kids from another country, and here what they have to say as well as tell them about ourselves. It's not everyday that we get to have such an opportunity. It's great that they take interest in America's issues though. It's kind of embarrassing and sad how unhealthy and uninformed we are, as well as money-minded. I'm glad we were able to do the skype chat, definitely worth it!

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  30. Skyping with a classroom from across the globe for the second time is truly a great experience. I’m just assuming that all New Zealand schools have “morning tea” now in their school schedule. Our classroom immediately thought that they had meant that they sit, chat and drink tea with each other to start their day but instead it is sort of a mixture of an advisory period and recess. (which we don’t have, nor do the other high schools in Texas!) It was amazing to take a survey of our class and the overwhelming number of students here who have eaten fast food in the last week compared to only 2 out of the 9 students in their NZ classroom. It kind worries me a little to think that unhealthy fast food restaurants are beginning to be more prevalent all around the globe not just here. They told us that KFC is pretty popular where they live and I think that’s very interesting because we probably have so many KFC restaurants here and we look at KFC as one of the many options instead of just our only option. Within the vicinity of our school, we have McDonalds, Sonic, Chipotle, Einstein Bagels, Smashburger, and Jersey Mikes. (the last three are newly opened restaurants) I know when I think of lunch or getting something to eat, I think of all the options I have. As far as exercise, I think its cool how they have multiple sports that they each play because we all have a focus on one sport or activity. It was pretty interesting to also discuss differences in coaches and the competitiveness in sports. They also talked about rugby as the dominant school and how they didn’t have bleachers or places that were build for large crowds, that is actually shocking! Sports is a big deal in Texas but at our school curriculum, we are only required to complete one year and half of PE (physical education) which to be honest, I didn’t mind because I did ping pong and online PE during my senior year. But that being said, I didn’t exercise at all during my freshman, sophomore, and barely during my junior year. But now the district has changed it for underclassmen to complete ONLY one year of some time of fitness course which doesn’t help for some students. So that’s a huge contrast from Texas schools to their school-- American schools should look at other schools that are setting the example in order to fix our country’s obesity problem.

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  31. I enjoyed the Skype. I don't think they learned much from us, other than that we don't know much about food, nutrition, and sports. I learned that rowing is a popular sport there. I also learned that many people participate in a variety of sports instead of specializing in one sport. I also learned that they don't eat at restaurants nearly as much. Overall, it was nice to get perspectives from another country.

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  32. Skyping with New Zealand for the second time was pretty cool. I learned they are not really competitive, but do sports more for the social experience, whereas we as Americans are very competitive and do everything we can to win. I thought it was interesting to hear that their coaches are all volunteers and teach at the school. Most schools in America have paid coaches, and their job depends on their win-lose ratio. They also play multiple sports, staying active all year long. In NZ they encourage actually playing the sport opposed to sitting on the side and watching. They don't have bleachers its more of just a grassy field.
    Most of the kids in NZ hardly ever eat out. 2 out of their 9 students ate at a fast food restaurant within the past week, and 9 of 13 of our students ate out, probably more than once. I think they actually learned a lot about us, like the fact our portion sizes are much larger than theirs, we don't exercise daily, we're lazy and don't care to make any significant changes in our diet even after we found out how unhealthy we are eating.

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  33. Major thing that i learned from New Zealand compared to the USA is that they are not that big into fast food restaurants compared to the thousands of chained restaurants in the USA. One survey that occurred was if you ate out at in the past week while only 2 of the 9 students raised there hands in New Zealand 9 out of the 13 students from the class said they have so i see a big difference in diets between the two countries. Another difference i saw was that the students in New Zealand were not that big when it came to practice or competition while us students in Texas made most of our schedules around sports. Ive learned alot from this Skype and i really enjoyed my self talking to the other students as well considering i thought it was going to be boring in all honesty but i was really pleased with the information ive learned and i think that doing this kinda of education should be pushed more to students, THANKS.

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