The Exercise Through Games project webinar series: digital games move, inspire and unite

The Exercise Through Games project of the City of Espoo has attracted national and international interest with its new way of combining physical activity, pedagogy and digitalisation. The project now uncovers its experiences and insights in a webinar series open to everyone, which offers practical perspectives for increasing everyday activity and developing teaching through exergames.

The webinars are open to everyone and free of charge. So far, two webinars have been held, and a new webinar is coming during the autumn.

The Exercise Through Games project is a development project coordinated by the City of Espoo's Sports and Exercise unit, which is funded from the Make a Move programme(external link, opens in a new window) of the Government Programme. The aim of the programme is to increase Finnish people’s physical activity in all age groups, and Espoo has taken on this goal by combining the benefits and fun of digital exergames.

The project has piloted digital exergames in more than 20 early childhood education, basic education and upper secondary education units in Espoo, and it has already resulted in more than 3,000 extra hours of physical activity in the daily lives of children and young people.

The pilot has made versatile use of different solutions from exergame walls and floors to VR reality, gamified map applications and exercise bikes. The results have been significant: 90% of teaching and early childhood education staff feel that exergames support the objectives of the curriculum.

“Exergaming is impulsive, independent and fun. That's why it works so well. In Espoo, we want to make exercise choices easy. Children get some exercise without even noticing, and at the same time they develop many important everyday skills, such as queuing and working together,” says Project Planning Officer Oona Koivula.

Webinars have highlighted the importance of cooperation between companies and educational institutions, for example. Several successful cooperation models and development partnerships have been implemented in the project, one of the most important of which is cooperation between the City of Espoo and the TAHTO Center for Finnish Sports Culture.

Cooperation with TAHTO Center for Finnish Sports Culture consists of experimenting with pedagogical content together with exergame solutions located in Espoo's basic education units. Teaching contents are available for a wide range of subjects, such as history and geography.

The opening webinar of the series was held on 2 October 2025, and its speaker was Kimmo Leinonen, the sports planner responsible for e-sports at the City of Espoo Sports and Exercise unit. Leinonen explained how digitalisation, gamification and exercise are intertwined and what kind of practical experiments have been carried out in Espoo.

Leinonen has been starting the journey of the Sports and Exercise unit with digitalising exercise, and the first steps in promoting exergames were taken under their leadership in Espoo, already in 2021. In the first part of the webinar series, Leinonen explained why Espoo has taken on the development of digitalising exercise:

“The digitalisation of exercise and sports, especially exergames, is currently of interest to residents, companies and municipalities alike. People’s lives, hobbies and wellbeing are becoming digitalised rapidly, and it is important that we can also respond to it in a development-oriented and sustainable manner.”

The second part of the webinar series was held on 27 October 2025, and its speaker was Maria Juopperi, the deputy director of Metsola and Jousenkaari daycare centres.

Juopperi is one of the pioneers of utilising exergames in early childhood education in Espoo, and their speech focused on practical experiences, insights and everyday examples. Juopperi's units have tested an interactive exergame floor called Fly Sky, which contains applications with both physical and pedagogical content.

“Playtime on the interactive exergame floor simultaneously develops many of the objectives of early childhood education. These include cooperation skills, resilience to disappointment, waiting for one’s turn, language learning and academic skills in areas such as mathematics or recycling. Games provide experiences and experiences of inclusion for each child at their own skill level,” Juopperi described.

Wondering is part of digital exergames. Together with the children we wonder how a digital device can reflect a fishpond or an animal image on the floor. Through the gamification of exergames, children get experiences. During Juopperi's exergame experiments, children began to brainstorm and develop their own games in connection with exergames. For example, a fishpond on an interactive floor turned into an oasis of mermaids, where the children suddenly started practising swimming movements.

The lessons learned and results of the Exercise Through Games project have also attracted international interest. Project Planning Officer Oona Koivula and Esports Planner Kimmo Leinonen were invited to speak at the smartcities & sport summit 2025 organised in Seoul in October 2025. The presentation presented Espoo’s model of combining digital exercise and game culture as part of municipal services.

“Espoo has succeeded in creating a shared vision in which digitalisation and exercise do not compete with each other, but support each other,” said the organiser of the event, smartcities & sport network, in their statement.

You can watch the smartcities & sport summit 2025 presentation of the City of Espoo here(external link, opens in a new window). The presentation is in English.

The “Movement through Games” project webinar series continues on Thursday, November 27, 2025, from 13:00 to 14:00 with its final session. The topic will be exercise game trials implemented in basic education, and the speaker is Tuukka Kallio, who works as a class teacher at Viherlaakso School and as a learning technology development teacher for the City of Espoo.

Register for the webinar on November 27, 2025 here(external link, opens in a new window). The webinar will be held in Finnish.

If you would like to watch recordings of previous webinars, you can request the links by email at:

oona.e.koivula@espoo.fi

If you would like to view the recordings of previous webinars, you can request the links by email at:

oona.e.koivula@espoo.fi