COD 2025 - D1195

Webinar - Paddle & Pounce: Integrating Climate Change, Language, and Cross-Disciplinary Learning

Primary teachers, librarians, heads, coordinators, and teaching assistants interested in innovative ways to teach language and climate change

1 sessions, start: 12-Nov

Please enrol before Friday, November 7th 2025

Course detail

Year: 2025
Level: Distance
Language: English
Status: Announced
Lugar: Distance
Facilitator/s: Sonja Scherling
Print course
ESSARP Schools
Free of charge
Exams Schools
Free of charge
Non affiliate
Free of charge

Sessions

Sessions Dates Start Finish
1 12 November 2025 05:30 pm 06:30 pm

Facilitator/s

Sonja Scherling

Sonja is a writer with a passion for inspiring children to care for the planet through rhymed and bilingual picture books. Her love for storytelling was instilled in her by her grandmother, who read to her and her siblings every evening throughout their summer and winter holidays. From the classics to a wide variety of books, Sonja’s early exposure to literature shaped her love for books. In her first years as a teacher, Sonja also taught drama to primary school students, nurturing her creative side and understanding the importance of engaging young minds through storytelling.
With a degree in Business Management, Sonja spent over 10 years at Unilever, specializing in marketing and communications. Throughout her career, she honed the ability to listen, identify hidden needs, and translate them into meaningful actions—a skill that later shaped her journey into storytelling.
In 2005, Sonja co-founded BuildGreens with her husband, an architect, to integrate gardens into high-rise buildings and bring sustainable green spaces to urban environments. Their initiative aimed to merge architecture with nature, creating healthier, eco-friendly living spaces.
After relocating to Patagonia near the stunning Lanín and Nahuel Huapi National Parks, Sonja spent 15 years as a freelance translator and project manager. Her deepening connection to nature during this time strengthened her commitment to sustainability, which now influences her writing.
While raising her three daughters, Sonja read books by Julia Donaldson and Lynley Dodd, which, combined with her passion for the planet, inspired her to write her own children’s stories. Drawing from her love of nature, she created her first bilingual, rhymed book that mixes fun, adventure, and environmental themes, encouraging children to connect with and protect the world.
Sonja invites everyone to join her in exploring, learning, and safeguarding the beauty of our planet for future generations.
Primary teachers, librarians, heads, coordinators, and teaching assistants interested in innovative ways to teach language and climate change
Introduce Climate Change in a Hopeful, Age-Appropriate Way: Explore how Paddle & Pounce helps students understand environmental challenges through storytelling that emphasizes care, action, and optimism.
Enhance Language Learning and Communication Skills: Discover how the book’s bilingual, rhymed narrative strengthens vocabulary, comprehension, and creative expression while reinforcing environmental understanding.
Promote Cross-Disciplinary and Values-Based Learning: Learn how to integrate the story’s themes across English, Science, Geography, and the Arts, fostering empathy, teamwork, inclusion, and global citizenship in the classroom.
This 50-minute session presents Paddle & Pounce as a powerful tool for connecting climate education, language learning, and cross-disciplinary teaching. Participants will explore how the book:
Introduces climate change in a hopeful, empowering way that encourages curiosity and responsibility.
Connects language and environmental literacy through rhyme, bilingual storytelling, and vivid illustration.
Builds empathy, cooperation, and respect—core values that support inclusion and anti-bullying education.
Bridges subjects by linking English, Science, Geography, and the Arts through creative, inquiry-based learning.
Inspires students to see themselves as capable, caring global citizens who can make a difference.
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