Playgrounds at 50 degrees and classrooms over 30: this is how extreme heat is seen in Barcelona's schools

The heat is eating away at Barcelona's schools. Using thermal imaging cameras, high temperatures in the Catalan capital's educational centers have been recorded, and the results are unsustainable: over 31 degrees inside classrooms, with a minimum not dropping below 29. On the playgrounds, the areas around the basketball hoops and goalposts register over 50 degrees. This is what Greenpeace denounces, after visiting six schools and institutes across the country to confirm the extreme temperatures endured by children and adolescents.

The organization has taken photos and videos with thermal cameras in a school in Barcelona, where the playground reaches 50.1 degrees in full sun compared to a shaded area, where the temperature drops to 29 degrees. In the dining hall, things don't improve: children eat with the thermometer reading 30 degrees, and then go to a classroom with the same temperature.

According to scientific studies, as Greenpeace emphasizes, from 24 degrees onwards, school performance decreases for every degree the temperature rises, and the optimal range is between 22 and 24 degrees. As for the images, a color palette shows the lowest temperature in dark blue and the highest in yellow. In Barcelona, as in the rest of the centers visited by the entity, in Benissa (Marina Alta), Madrid, Ourense, and Seville, the optimal threshold for learning is exceeded, but also the limit set by labor legislation for sedentary work.

In fact, the most serious situation recorded is in Benissa, where the school playground reaches 61 degrees in full sun.

Greenpeace joins initiatives like Aules que Cremen, a platform driven by teachers that monitors the heat and humidity of more than 200 public schools and institutes in Catalonia in real time. The complaint is clear: the situation puts children's health at risk and must be remedied.