Students take turns jumping during a summer program in 2024 created by the Los Angeles Unified School District. Outdoor school recesses across the country are less frequent on average due to extreme heat, especially in summer.
Photo by Dania Maxwell, courtesy The Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
With a promise that 30% of its schoolyards will be green spaces by 2035, the Los Angeles Unified School District knows that smart surfaces are no longer optional — they are the standard.
Today over 500,000 Los Angeles Unified public school children benefit from at least one smart surface intervention at their schools, whether it is reflective coatings on asphalt or additional trees planted for shade, said Christos Chrysiliou, the district's chief eco-sustainability officer.
“We know that nature itself — plantings, trees, any earthy material — is much healthier and better for the environment because it doesn't release all the chemicals and everything else on a manmade surface,” Chrysiliou told The Nation's Health. “Anything natural is much healthier, improves the air quality, improves the air circulation.”
Ensuring schools and classrooms are able to stay cool with the changing climate is important, as children are one of the most vulnerable populations under extreme heat. They have a harder time regulating their body temperature and their underdeveloped lungs are at high risk for respiratory conditions such as asthma, according to the American Lung Association's “School Guide to Smart Surfaces” report. Children also find it harder to concentrate and learn in high temperatures.
“For every degree over 80 degrees at a school, there's a measurable impact on student learning,” Jill Heins, MS, the American Lung Association's senior director nationwide of health systems improvement and indoor air quality, told The Nation's Health.
A federal analysis found that 41% of U.S. public school districts needed upgrades in heating, ventilation and air conditioning in at least half of their buildings as of 2020.
Black and brown students in low-income areas are disproportionately affected, as their campuses tend to have fewer trees and more concrete. In addition, recent research has found that higher temperatures are keeping kids indoors and cutting into outdoor recess time.
Extreme heat in schools can have a snowball effect on students, said Greg Kats, MBA, MPA, founder and CEO of the Smart Surfaces Coalition.
“In a hot school where kids can't run around and play, test scores go down, learning goes down,” Kats told The Nation's Health. “If learning goes down, lifetime earnings go down, which means the community in which these kids live has a lower tax base. It's a narrow self-interested reason for communities to make sure those schools have smart surfaces. They're protecting the kids, allowing them to play outdoors, reducing electricity bills, improving air quality.”
With growing high temperatures a threat to learning, protecting schools is important.
Courtesy Damircudic, iStockphoto
School officials have less time to focus on excessive heat because of staff shortages and finding qualified teachers, Heins said. They often also lack funding to invest in smart surface projects.
Schools can get started with low-cost interventions, such as applying reflective film to windows on the south and west sides of school buildings, she suggested. Schools could also form partnerships with green and energy-efficient industries.
Another step to reducing heat is to determine just how much shade is available, said V. Kelly Turner, PhD, associate director of the Luskin Center for Innovation at the University of California-Los Angeles.
The Luskin Center partnered with American Forests to create a “Shade Map” for more than 360 U.S. cities and towns that lets users identify problem areas known as “shade deserts,” and observe how shade cover changes throughout the day over a school playground.
The Los Angeles district also has a tool to identify which schools most need smart surfaces. The district's “greening index” uses data on extreme heat temperature, air pollution and existing green space to prioritize schools for climate-ready upgrades, such as cool roofs or permeable pavement to reduce flooding.
“It's a great benefit for the environment, and other social and mental health benefits for our students,” Chrysiliou said.
To read the American Lung Association report, visit www.lung.org. For more on smart surfaces, visit www.smartsurfacescoalition.org.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
