How schools become climate fit

While heat in Austria was mainly limited to the months of July and August in the past, i.e. during the summer vacations, it will also occur more frequently in May, June and September in the future. In order to enable Austrian schools to adapt to future climate conditions in good time, the Sparkling Science project Climate Ready Schools is researching ways to increase the climate resilience of Austrian schools.

Under the leadership of the AIT Austrian Institute for Technology, we are working together with 6 partner schools. Their contributions are diverse and include interviews on the impact of climate change, workshops on the development of climate resilience measures, the development of open space design concepts, measurements of the microclimate and the installation of shading and greening elements.

The pupils of Bruck an der Leitha grammar school are also actively involved as citizen scientists, as recently reported in a newspaper article.

"We are happy with the project. The sixth and seventh grade students involved have learned a lot, on the one hand about the challenges of climate change, and on the other hand about scientific work in general, such as how to conduct a survey correctly," sums up principal Sabine Puchinger.