Lunchboxes Around The World

As parents we always keep an eye on what our children eat for lunch at school. Either we check their lunchboxes at home before they will leave for school or we hopefully know what they will eat for lunch at the school's cantine. Whatever we - as parents - accept for lunch it depends on what we can offer to them. And we decide what is healthy food and what they should avoid to eat. For children it is useful sometimes to get aware of what other children in other part of the world get for lunch (if they get anything for lunch at all!) to value their own food.

Students at lunch in Staint Lucia, West Indies

Teachers from schools from the West Indies, from Africa, Japan and Australia took pictures of their students' lunchboxes and from their cantines to show these to my students. And Anne Mirtschin from Hawkesdale College, Victoria, Australia, presented her slideshow this morning straight using Skype and Elluminate Blackboard services. My students compared these meals with the food they usually eat and decided what they would like to eat and which food might be a healthy food for them.

A typical lunchbox in Australia

My students were watching the presentations by Anne Mirtschin from Australia,
who was so kind to report on her pictures by herself.

Thank you Celina Fessall from St. Lucia, Simon Lorimer from Yokohama International School, Anne Mirtschin from Australia and  Peter Jackson from Lusaka, Sambia, for their nice pictures. My students learned a lot.

Guest speaker Dayna Hilton and Dalmatian Molly from Arkansas (USA) were talking to my grade 6 and grade 7 students

Meanwhile I have learned by several Skype meetings that animals can positively influence the educational results of children from the distance. But can these animals influence the behaviour of the children in special situations?

Yesterday we had a Skype meeting with Dayna Hilton from Akransas, USA, and her dog Molly, an eight months' old Dalmatian. Dayna is working as a volunteer fire fighter and member of the"Keep- Kids- Fire-Save- Foundation". This foundation is a federally recognized not- profit charitable organisation dedicated to teaching fire safety knowledge and skills to children and their caregivers based in fire safety research.

And she - and her dog - told our 6th- and 7th graders and their teachers Mrs Sauer and Mr Marx all about fire fighters and why it is important to know what to do in case of emergency. And about dogs who are operating on behalf of fire fighting to find people who are missing. The dog did a lot of funny things to entertain the Germans and its scout.

Half a hour before the official meeting we had had a line check to avoid technical problems during the official meeting.

To reach my students at noon my time Mrs Hilton had to stand up really early in the morning. And Daylight Savings caused an additional problem she solved expertly and with one or two cups of coffee. It was the first educational meeting this organisation had with a school in Germany.


We fixed two video cameras, one at each location of the meeting. The following video takes you into the 40 minutes' meeting for a moment, switching from one point of view to the other:

Thanks, Dayna, for this wonderful meeting!!!