Preliminary findings of storytelling in schools as a pre-heatwave intervention to enhance children's behaviour to improve thermal comfort

Abstract

Younger schoolchildren in particular are at risk of overheating in school due to two key factors. Firstly, children have a preference for lower temperatures than adults, and yet schools are designed and operated using adult thermal preference guidance. Secondly, younger schoolchildren often lack the confidence to change their behaviour in a school setting (remove a jumper, more away from direct sunlight, drink more water etc.) without prompting from the teacher. This paper reports a pilot study of a storytelling approach to enable schoolchildren to enhance their behaviour to improve their thermal comfort. A control: intervention study was undertaken across eight classes, in two schools in Hampshire, UK, with KS1 (national curriculum Key Stage 1, age 6–7) and KS2 (Key Stage 2 age 7–9) children. A new story, “The Hottest Day at School” was developed, where actions to improve thermal comfort were introduced, read by the teacher to children of intervention classes prior to a heatwave. The thermally influenced actions and feelings of schoolchildren were assessed during the heatwave event via a sticker log activity which each child completed. Fisher's exact and Pearson's chi-squared tests indicate statistically significant differences in the actions of KS1 children in particular. Whilst acknowledging the preliminary nature of the findings, the paper suggests that the storytelling approach does enable children to adapt their behaviour to enhance thermal comfort.