Climate ready schools: Research against heat stress

To mark World Health Day and under the motto ‘Healthy learning environments for all’, we are presenting the ‘Climate ready schools’ project today. The citizen science project is researching how Austrian schools can better adapt to the consequences of climate change, with a particular focus on heat stress in the early and late summer months.

Together with researchers from the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) and the Vienna University of Technology, pupils, teachers and school administrators are actively involved in the research process as citizen scientists. The contributions of the citizen scientists are diverse and range from interviews and measurements of the microclimate to the development of greening and shading elements at the schools.

The research project is primarily concerned with the question: How climate-resilient are our schools - and what can we do together to make them fit for the future? Answers to this question are provided not only by scientific methods such as microclimate simulations, but above all by the direct contribution of the citizen scientists at the 6 participating partner schools, whose expertise and diversity of locations provide a broad picture.

The findings will not only benefit the partner schools - other educational institutions in Austria will also benefit from them, as a climate readiness check is to be developed to help schools assess their climate fitness in future and plan targeted measures.

Find further information about the project here