Photo: producers Camilla Boman and Helka Soini instruct the JyväSpeksi's performers moments before the start of the dress rehearsal.

For many university students, Finnish vappu (May Day) marks the end of the semester and the beginning of summer. During the vappu, students gather to wear their graduation cap on a statue, baptize new engineering students in Lake Jyväsjärvi and race in the Amazing Race city adventure. On May Day, students in overalls will have a picnic on the Harju.

Kvik kvik, tsirp tsirp and ti-ti-tyy – now you no longer have to guess which bird species it is, as the artificial intelligence of the mobile application recognizes bird species! By making a recording, you can also help science. During the spring, a hundred point counting sites for migratory birds have been set up in the City of Jyväskylä area, where anyone can record birdsong and make their recordings available to researchers. This is the Migratory Bird Spring application developed by the University of Jyväskylä, and this year it will be used to create a point count network together with the City of Helsinki and Metsähallitus National Parks.

This year, Jyväskylä's May Day will kick off with a bang, when a student-created Vappukuulutus! echoes from the Harju Tower to signal the start of the spring festival week. The song, composed by students and played by Puhkupillit, will be heard from Harju on Wednesday 24 April at 20.00. In addition to the students, Jyväskylä's May Day celebrations offer a wide range of activities for families with children and anyone else interested in the spring festivities.

The Finnish Sustainable Communities FISU network actively collaborates on projects enhancing resource wisdom. The member municipalities FISU municipalities planned a joint project and shared experiences during the spring meeting of the network

Every year, thousands of students choose Jyväskylä as their city to study in. There are many reasons: one is motivated by the range of courses on offer, another by the leisure opportunities and a third by the ease of everyday life. But how would university students describe Jyväskylä to someone who is still deciding between different cities to study in?