PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Temperature rise It has far-reaching effects, including in classrooms. Heat can also impact the learning process.
As the weather warms, making summers hotter and seasons colder in many places, keeping schools cool is becoming an increasing challenge.
In a rapidly warming world, access to cooling is critical to ensuring the health, safety and well-being of students and school staff.
The number of cooling degree days, an indicator of cooling demand, increased during the back-to-school period. [late July through early September] Since 1970, almost all [231 or 95%] Of the 243 U.S. locations analyzed by Climate Central, the Philadelphia area saw a 25% increase in cooling degree days.
It is measured as a value that is the difference between a location's average daily temperature and 65 degrees, which is commonly thought of as an engineering constant that represents an ideal indoor temperature.
For example, the average temperature [the high and the low temperature] The high temperature of the day is 85 degrees. Subtract 65 degrees from that and you get an ideal indoor temperature of 20 degrees. That means 20 degree cooling days in Philadelphia.
Going back to 1970, the number of cooling degree days from July 17th to September 8th increased by 25%.
This means there is an increased demand for systems that keep classrooms at the right temperature for children to learn effectively.
Over the past decade, man-made climate change has increased back-to-school cooling demand by about 34%.
A study in the American Economic Journal found that a 1°F increase in average temperature during the school year leads to a 1% decrease in learning gains that year, based on test scores, although air conditioning can offset the effects of heat on learning.