The German international student program at Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School (PSO) saw another good year.
Volunteer Cornelia Braune says five students from Germany participated this year, one of whom had to return home due to a family illness.
The four remaining students all noted that their hosts included them in various family activities, from ATV adventures to trips to Jasper, Alta. and even Disneyland.
Finja Kruse, 16, of Hamburg, just completed Grade 11 at PSO and says the school year was a very positive time for her.
"I decided to do an exchange mostly to improve my English, but also for the experience of a different culture, the nature and to meet new people."
PSO is quite different from the school she went to in Germany, she notes.
"It's very nice to see the teachers care about each student and take their time to help the students with their problems."
Most of the students agreed the variety of subject choices was a big change from schools in their country, where those are very limited with most courses mandated.
The natural landscape and wildlife and the amount of open land were other differences they noticed during their Canadian experience.
The youngest student this year is 15-year-old Emil Niedner, of Potnam (near Berlin), who completed Grade 10.
"I liked the whole Canada, the entire year," he says, adding the snowboarding and the school were the best part and he would recommend others travel here.
Niedner adds Canada is not as "wild and dangerous" as he expected and the school surprised him, too.
"In all those North American movies, you see the wilderness [and predators], and the myths about high schooling."
Max Frey, 18, recently completed Grade 11 in his second year as a foreign student from Schoeffengrund, a small town near Frankfurt.
"This year has also been awesome and exciting so far. I experienced another year of hockey over the winter time and lots of snowmobiling and [riding quads]."
Frey adds he plans to return for his third year at PSO, during which he hopes to graduate.
"I think the schooling here in Canada is a lot better than in Germany because the teachers are a lot nicer and care about students."
16-year-old Tim Kassin is also from Hamburg, which he notes is a big city (larger than Toronto).
Kassin says he would recommend the PSO program to students at home as long as they really like nature and can arrange for use of an ATV for recreation.
If that's not the case, Kassin said he'd suggest German students go to a bigger Canadian city to make it easier to meet friends after school and find things to do.
"For me, the school system is very different, but simple, compared to the German. I also think most of the classes are quite a bit easier."
Braune says the costs for each German student are $10,000 in school fees for the two semesters.
"It is a lot of money and many family members of the German students put the money together in order to enable the stay."