The school has the potential of being an important meeting point between citizens and the community. Education for sustainable development could be one way of using this potential. But this demands that booth the school and the community cooperate with the intention to create such meeting points. This paper will present one example of this kind of cooperation with focus on creating participatory action research about education for sustainable development. The Environment Department of the City of Malmo has begun to work with researcher from Malmo University with the intention of starting research circles with teachers with education for sustaniable development as a theme. A research circle is a participatory action research method where practitioner (in this case teachers employed by city of Malmö) together with researcher formulated research questions based on their experiences of their own praxis. In this case, the goal is to develop a critical understanding of teaching and learning processes about sustaniable issues as a teacher. The paper is a critical reflection about research circles as a method for developing community based learning, with a research focus, about sustaniable development. The empiric material is based on our experiences of working with the method as a way of developing cooperation between the city of Malmö, Malmö University and teacher working at schools in Malmö.