Tens Of Thousands Of US Classrooms Will Be Too Hot For Students To Learn In As Heat Waves Intensify
Paul Chinowsky, University of Colorado Boulder
Rising temperatures due to climate change are causing more than just uncomfortably hot days across the United States. These high temperatures are placing serious stress on critical infrastructure such as water supplies, airports, roads and bridges.
One category of critical infrastructure being severely affected is the nation’s K-12 schools.
Ideally, the nation’s more than 90,000 public K-12 schools, which serve over 50 million students, should protect children from the sometimes dangerous elements of the outdoors such as severe storms or extreme temperatures.
But since so many of America’s schools are old and dilapidated, it’s the school buildings themselves that need protection – or at least to be updated for the 21st century.
Twenty-eig...