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We know that hurricanes and massive snow storms can keep kids out of school, but most are unaware of how extreme heat and global warming itself can have a profound impact on K-12 education.
As of today, a whopping 466 million children around the world live in areas that experience twice as many high temperatures, exceeding over 35 degrees Celsius, in comparison to their grandparents.
As a result, K-12 education across the globe is impacted – which is especially challenging at a time where higher education is becoming essential for younger generations to excel in the job market and maintain financially and personally rewarding careers.
In this article, we’ll explain how heat keeps kids out of schools, the short & long term effects, and how we could help save our children’s education moving forward.
Today, we are facing more extreme weather conditions such as intense heat that can prohibit global education from adhering to the necessary standards to ensure children around the world receive an adequate education.
💡Our society burns more fossil fuels than ever before, with a staggering 97 billion barrels of oil being consumed per day in 2021. As a result, it makes it challenging for schools to stay open in the event of poor air quality or other threats to children’s health.
It’s important to remember that rising global temperatures pose a threat to public school systems, such as K-12 education, for a multitude of reasons: such as the impact on healthcare, infrastructure, and how conducive the learning environments will be to successfully teach children.
The main threat to K-12 education that extreme heat poses to school systemes is the continued usage of fossil fuels. This is because excess human activity spurred by industrialisation continues to increase global temperatures which can make it challenging for public schools to stay open.
Some of the reasons why rising global temperatures can threaten public school systems such as K-12 education include:
Here’s a table explaining more of the ways that climate change as a whole can impact school systems worldwide:
| Reason | Description |
|---|---|
| Infrastructure Damage | Extreme weather events like hurricanes, floods, and wildfires can damage school buildings, disrupt transportation, and result in costly repairs or temporary closures. |
| Health Risks for Students and Staff | Rising temperatures can lead to heat-related illnesses, particularly in schools without adequate air conditioning, increasing absenteeism and reducing physical activity. |
| Air Quality Issues | Higher temperatures can worsen air pollution and increase allergens, affecting students with respiratory conditions and leading to higher absenteeism. |
| Increased Operational Costs | Schools may face higher energy costs for cooling, putting strain on budgets and diverting funds from educational programs and staffing. |
| Interruption of School Schedules | Extreme weather events can lead to frequent school closures, disrupting the academic calendar and affecting learning continuity. |
| Mental Health Impacts | The stress and anxiety related to extreme weather events and displacement can affect students' mental health, increasing behavioral issues and the need for support services. |
| Disparities in Education Access | Low-income and under-resourced schools are often the most vulnerable, lacking cooling systems and funds for repairs, exacerbating existing educational inequalities. |
| Displacement of Communities | Climate change can lead to community displacement due to disasters, resulting in disrupted education for students who frequently move or attend under-resourced schools. |
| Impacts on School Nutrition Programs | Rising temperatures and droughts can affect food production, increasing meal costs and making it difficult for schools to provide nutritious options for students. |
Here are just a few examples of countries that have struggled to keep their public schools open and fully functioning as a result of global warming:
K-12 education, a term most frequently used in the United States, refers to the public education system that carries children from the age of 5-6 until the age of 17-18 when they graduate from high school or any global equivalent.
K-12 education is important as it provides a blueprint of education for children such as reading, writing, mathematics, and other critical thinking skills that will be required for future jobs or higher education.
💡 K-12 education is a massively debated topic in the midst of the 2024 presidential election.
Developing countries around the world may not refer public education to K-12 education, but the concept is the same – as it refers to government funded education for minors. Currently, countries such as Pakistan and other southeast Asian countries are struggling to keep kids in school as a result of extreme temperatures.
This can be a result of the following:
👉 Global warming creates physical and monetary constraints on education, seeing as it will require schools to incorporate new uses of technology to make the learning environment a safer, healthier place – such as by implementing the use of air conditioning.
There are several short-term effects of extreme heat on K-12 education, such as situational mental health disorders, interruptions in school schedules, and teachers needing to rearrange their curriculum and skip over potentially pivotal subject matters.
We are deeply concerned that the number of extreme heat days is going to indirectly lead to learning loss.” – Lily Caprani, who works as Chief of advocacy for Unicef.
sThese short-term effects of extreme heat not only have an impact on public education in developing countries, but in the United States – too. States such as Massachusetts and Colorado had to employ early dismissal days from K-12 education in the midst of heatwaves.
💡 It’s important to remember that it isn’t only extreme heat that can cause school closures, but that snowstorms, flooding, hurricanes, and other natural disasters can have a negative impact on K-12 education as well. These disruptions to public education are only expected to increase as we near 2050.
Here are some of the additional short-term effects how global warming can negatively impact those seeking public or K-12 education:
👉The short-term effects of disrupted education as a result of global warming have a substantial impact on students mental health.
The long-term effects of global warming on education are arguably more severe, seeing as long-term interruptions to K-12 education can include a lack of critical thinking skills and an inability to pursue higher education.
Some of the long-term impacts of global warming on education include:
👉 Overall, the long-term effects of global warming on education could pose serious threats to economic development, health, and future higher learning.
The main way to deter global warming from impacting K-12 education is to fight rising global temperatures as a whole, but in the event scorching heat takes precedence over education – there are a few things we can do, such as find safer places to build schools.
In the event that the human species isn’t able to reduce climate change enough to deter the current impact it has on K-12 education worldwide – there are other solutions to help preserve public education.
💡We must make an effort to preserve in person learning seeing as many young children could not properly learn via remote learning, as studies reveal that it has a negative impact on student’s behavior. Therefore, it’s important we preserve in person learning as much as possible for K-12 education.
Here are some of the ways we could prevent global warming from impact K-12 education:
Nearly 40 percent of children in Benin and 66 percent of children in Ivory Coast, for instance, are expected to experience twice as many extreme heat days in their lifetimes, compared with their grandparents.” – NY Times.
Overall, global warming is undoubtedly eliciting a negative effect on education worldwide – meaning that it’s important we tackle the root of the problem (excess GHG emissions) while also implement fair protocols to protect students’ education today.
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