The city of Oulu is turning climate strategy into everyday action through a lifelong learning model that reaches people from early childhood to adulthood.
Turning climate strategy into everyday action
“The Sustainable Future Learning Stream is reframing sustainability as a part of everyday life for Oulu’s citizens, not as something extra,” says Paula Ratava. “Through being in and learning about nature, people understand more deeply how our well-being is dependent on the earth’s well-being.”
Paula Ratava, Advisory Teacher and Jussi Tomberg, Senior Advisor for Sustainability have been working on the lifelong learning model since its inception in 2019. In an interview with Eurocities, the two explain why it began and how it is transforming the city.
Before the initiative, the city’s sustainability education was uneven between schools, subjects and age groups. The city recognised a need for shared goals, practical climate skills, and a common framework to connect the city’s overall strategy with everyday behaviour. With that in mind, they designed a learning model anchored in schools but built to reach citizens of all ages.
Paula explains, “We are in the midst of an environmental crisis and we cannot hide that reality from children and young people. Instead, we want to give them realistic hope by offering practical solutions.”
Through being in and learning about nature, people understand more deeply how our well-being is dependent on the earth's well-being.
Rather than introducing climate science as an abstract concern, the Sustainable Future Learning Stream weaves nature-based learning into curricula from early childhood to upper secondary level to give students the vocabulary to understand the climate crisis and the practical tools to study it in their own backyard.
Through activities like outdoor education, food councils, and school-level climate projects, the initiative is making climate action practical, measurable, and relevant to everyday life.
Embedding sustainability into every stage of learning
Oulu’s approach is multi-layered, using hands-on activities that have been carefully designed to make sustainability a lived experience rather than a lesson. Students even contribute to real environmental research through a citizen science project monitoring the condition of local lakes and waterways.
Armed with research kits, children and their teachers collect water samples and send their findings directly to a city environmental database, giving authorities near real-time data on changing water conditions. It is a powerful example of the initiative’s philosophy in action. It is sustainability education that is not just theoretical, but genuinely makes a difference to their city.
The city also runs a Nature School and a Nature Home, both housed in the same building. The Nature School serves school-age pupils, while the Nature Home extends the same approach to day care children. A dedicated Nature School teacher either visits schools directly or welcomes classes to the Nature School site.
Early childhood educators do the same, visiting kindergartens or welcoming daycare groups to the Nature Home. The Nature School teacher’s visits are designed not just to deliver lessons, but to model outdoor teaching methods so that regular classroom teachers and early childhood educators can learn and eventually use those methods independently.
Beyond this, the city offers dedicated training sessions for teachers on how to teach outdoors. Online materials and curriculum-linked workshops are also available through the Sustainable Future Learning Stream’s web pages, helping teachers connect their existing curriculum to sustainability themes.
My children are now in school nearby and they have brought home some exercises that get us out in nature together.
From classroom to community
Tools like the Repair Manual for Schools put climate action directly in students’ hands, helping them measure and reduce emissions within their own school communities. Using a built-in carbon footprint calculator, students can assess the environmental impact of their schools and crucially, act on what they find.
If a school meal is found to have too high a carbon footprint, students can take their findings directly to the city officials responsible and push for change. It is this direct line between learning and action that has driven growing student participation, most visibly through food councils where young people have a say in the food served in their schools.
The impact of food councils is two-fold: increasing awareness of food sources and encouraging active citizenship. Jussi explains, “The food councils really empower the students. They meet several times a year, bringing student representatives together with the people who cook their meals to work on making lunches more sustainable.”
The results have been tangible. Vegan food is now available to all students, and as Paula notes, vegetarian options are no longer hidden away: “The vegetarian food isn’t in some kind of dark corner in the school cafeteria anymore. It’s in the same line as everything else.”
The initiative ensures that all children and young people have access to experiences in nature, sustainability education and climate-related activities through public education services, but it goes beyond schools. The initiative also works to educate the general public through main partners such as local libraries. However, equally impactful is the students’ influence on the adults in their families by sharing what they’ve learned at school.
For example, the city organises activities such as ‘Let’s go to nature’ programmes, where children and young people spend time outdoors, learn in natural environments, and build a personal connection to nature. Paula is experiencing the effects first-hand through her own children: “My children are now in school nearby and they have brought home some exercises that get us out in nature together.”
These activities support mental and physical health, reduce stress, and increase overall wellbeing, while also encouraging active, low-carbon lifestyles, and building long-term motivation for environmental responsibility.
Creating a replicable, adaptable model for Finland and beyond
Seven partner municipalities co-developed and have already adapted the model to their own local contexts through joint projects and peer learning networks.
“The problems we face engaging citizens in Oulu to act sustainably are universal problems,” Jussi explains. “We’re creating a replicable model that any city can adapt to their own needs.”
A key factor in the model’s success has been building cross-departmental ownership, ensuring that sustainability is not siloed within one team but shared across education, environment, youth services and beyond.
Even if you have the resources, if you don’t have the mindset of collaborating with different disciplines, it’s going to be harder to implement.
Paula says, “Even if you have the resources, if you don’t have the mindset of collaborating with different disciplines, it’s going to be harder to implement.”
Alongside this, the initiative has created a shared language and common goals across the entire education system, so that sustainability themes are understood and pursued consistently from early childhood through to upper secondary level.
More and more cities in Finland are developing their own sustainability paths influenced by Oulu’s learning stream model. The initiative is scalable because it combines a simple structure with practical actions and strong institutional anchoring. Cities can replicate the approach by mapping existing sustainability education activities and building a shared lifelong learning framework that aligns with city strategies and local curricula. Implementation is then supported through training, networks, and practical tools.
The initiative has been shared internationally at URBACT events, a UNICEF conference in China, and European Erasmus+ seminars.
“When we talk about nature and biodiversity, we must remember that people cannot respect what they do not know,” says Jussi. The Sustainable Future Learning Stream is ensuring future generations not only know nature but also how to protect it.
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Oulu’s Sustainable Future Learning Stream is one of the shortlisted ‘City Initiatives’ at the Eurocities Awards 2026. You can view the full awards shortlist here.
The winners will be announced at the Eurocities Annual Conference in Utrecht, 8-10 June 2026. Register for the Annual Conference to join the ceremony.
Photo credits: City of Oulu
