Thermal Comfort in School Classes in the Era of Global Warming: A Prospective Multicenter Study

Abstract

BACKGROUND: We investigated adolescents' feelings of thermal comfort during the educational process in various geographical locations far apart and present recommendations for the adjustment of the thermal environment in schools. METHODS: The prospective international multicenter study took place in 8 locations on different continents. The survey in the form of a questionnaire was carried out among 2800 healthy high school students. The study was divided into ''cold season survey,'' ''warm-season survey,'' and heat wave survey. RESULTS: The statistically significant difference between the ''cold season survey'' score of 4.04 (discomfort) and ''warm-season survey'' score of 3.47 (slight discomfort) (p = .04) indicates that students feel more thermal discomfort during winter months in all 8 locations. The heat wave survey score was 4.53 (discomfort). During the cold season, 29.24% of high school students felt themselves in full thermal comfort and 76.48% of the students felt themselves relatively comfortable (slightly cool-comfortable-slightly warm). CONCLUSIONS: Even during the ongoing process of climate change, the cold season discomfort remains the main problem for students in classes. This tendency is present in different continents as a universal problem. We recommend keeping an entrance hall and classroom temperatures at different levels and to advise students about proper clothing.

Evaluation of Indoor Thermal Comfort Conditions of Residential Traditional and Modern Buildings in a Warm-Humid Climate

“…The extant literature has continued to reiterate the nexus between thermal comfort and the wellbeing of human beings [12][13][14][15][16], sustainable development [17][18][19], and green building development [15], among other facets. Such sustained levels of interest among the research and practitioner communities concerning thermal comfort have been attributed to its potential to engender improved sustainability performance of contemporary society, tackling, as it were, challenges such as unsustainable energy consumption patterns [20,21] urban poverty, energy poverty [22,23], low levels of productivity [24][25][26][27][28], and above all, global warming [29,30].…”