Varpu Mehto

Varpu Mehto is a Grant-funded Researcher at the Department of Education, University of Helsinki, affiliated with the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS). Her work focuses on materiality in educational contexts, maker pedagogies, and sustainability science. She holds a Doctoral Thesis (2024) exploring materiality in Finnish classrooms.

Research Projects include the 'Antroposeenin lapset' project (2022–2025), exploring multispecies ethics and sustainability through collaborative design. She has organized/co-presented at conferences like ECQI European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (2024) and Sustainability Science Days (2023).

Key Contributions include developing methodologies like 'Making-Process Rugs' for tracing knowledge creation and analyzing sociomaterial dynamics in learning. Her work bridges art, environmental science, and educational practices.

Awards include the Best JURE Paper Award (2020) for research on collaborative invention projects in secondary schools.

Teaching & Outreach involves integrating material prototyping and design thinking into education, with a focus on interdisciplinary and multispecies approaches to sustainability.