Kerkonjoen koulu (Kerkonjoki school)

Kerkonjoki School is a village school in Kerkonjoki, Rautalampi, opened in 1938 and renovated during the 2017-2018 school year. Rautalampi is a municipality of 3 000 residents in the Northern Savonia region of Finland.

Kerkonjoki school has the grades 1-6 and a preschool group. As Rautalampi's only village school operating close to nature, they consider the environment, entrepreneurship and community as important things. The school building also houses a family day-care centre and can be rented for public events and tourism.

Kerkonjoki school participated in the LfE-project as a school cluster with Matti Lohi school. Finnish curriculum is strongly based on technological skills, collaboration between subjects and creativity, and the schools felt like the current conditions couldn't provide students what the curriculum requires.

The purpose of the project was to create a fab-lab environment that could be a center for operational technical equipment. The community is very extensively tied to the project, so that not only the students and teachers get to utilize the equipment but a wide variety of stakeholders as well. With this in mind, the schools bought Microbits, 3D printer, iPads, Lego educational spike class set, Sphero Bolt -coding robot, and laser cutter.