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Temperatures in Africa are expected to increase by the end of the century. Heat-related health impacts and perceived health symptoms are potentially a problem, especially in public schools with limited resources. Students (n = 252) aged ~14–18 years from eight high schools completed an hourly heat-health symptom log over 5 days. Data loggers measured indoor classroom temperatures. A high proportion of students felt tired (97.2%), had low concentration (96.8%) and felt sleepy (94.1%) during...

The validity of existing thermal comfort models is examined for upper primary school children in classroom settings. This is of importance to enhance productivity in the learning environment and to improve the control of artificial heating and cooling, including the potential for energy savings. To examine the thermal perceptions of children aged 10–12 years in non-air-conditioned classrooms, three sets of field experiments were conducted in boys’ and girls’ primary schools in Shiraz, Iran....

Classroom environment and cultures as well as the ways in which both students and learning are organized and managed increase teachers’ effectiveness in climate change. The effective teacher manages the large number of relatively diverse students who occupy these classrooms within the environment. The importance of physical environment, climate culture, organization and management of classroom within the larger context of teachers effectiveness is mostly clearly seen by noting that beginning...

Rising sea levels, due to thermal expansion of the ocean, and higher frequency and intensity of coastal and inland storms threaten coastal communities worldwide. The implementation of pro-active, planned adaptation to reduce community vulnerability is strongly dependent upon people's awareness of the threat posed to their communities at the local level.  With a focus on university lecturers in South-South Nigeria, a group of people expected to be knowledgeable; this study set out to look at...

Rising sea levels, due to thermal expansion of the ocean, and higher frequency and intensity of coastal and inland storms threaten coastal communities worldwide. The implementation of pro-active, planned adaptation to reduce community vulnerability is strongly dependent upon people's awareness of the threat posed to their communities at the local level.  With a focus on university lecturers in South-South Nigeria, a group of people expected to be knowledgeable; this study set out to look at...

In modern societies, educational buildings play a key role in creating a good social climate and conditions in which children and young people can develop. Several international studies have been conducted to evaluate students’ performance and the factors that most influence it, including classrooms’ thermal comfort. Yet, various revealed differences between pupils’ perception and the results of thermal comfort models. The large majority of the thermal comfort studies in classrooms were...

Rural poor in developing countries including Ethiopia are the most vulnerable community to climate change impacts because they depend mainly on climate sensitive economy. Hence this research attempted to assess the local vulnerability to climate change and farmers’ adaptatio n strategies in five dominant agro ecologies of Choke Mountain watershed of Eastern Gojjam zone. The study attempted to examine farmers’ perception towards climate change, their vulnerability (exposure, adaptive capacity...

Policy summary of paper presented at the regional conference on Rethinking regional security: Nexus between research and policy, November 25-26, 2015, University of Canterbury. A partnership between Macmillan brown Centre for Pacific Studies (University of Canterbury), Australian National University, United National Development Program and International Political Science Association

Policy summary of paper presented at the regional conference on Rethinking regional security: Nexus between research and policy, November 25-26, 2015, University of Canterbury. A partnership between Macmillan brown Centre for Pacific Studies (University of Canterbury), Australian National University, United National Development Program and International Political Science Association

This paper reports doctoral research that explores grassroots technologies as an asset for poor coastal communities of Bangladesh, how local knowledge contributes to the creation of such technologies, and how they can be useful to build a community’s trust in its own adaptive capacity. Bangladesh is one of the most disaster vulnerable countries in the world due to its deltaic morphology and frequent climate-induced hazards (storm surge, annual flooding, salinity intrusion, frequent cyclones,...

This study investigated the extent to which junior secondary school students in Port Harcourt Local Government Area of Rivers State Nigeria are aware of issues related to climate change and sustainable development. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. Four research questions were raised. Two instruments were used for data collection, a questionnaire and the junior secondary school teaching syllabus. The  questionnaire titled “ Climate change and Sustainable Development Awareness...

The non-formal educational sector in Nigeria encompasses a variety of citizenry, across the rural and urban settings. Evidently, this educational sector can be a key contributor to the dissemination of information on climate change, which is necessary for its mitigation and adaptation. As Nigeria government is incrementally enabling the introduction of a climate change education to the school curriculum, the non-formal education sector engagement is vital. The study herein described is aimed...

The impact of climate change on agriculture differs depending on the region and sector of activity. Predictive models suggest that climate change in eastern Canada will overall result in increased temperatures, changed precipitations patterns, and overall longer cropping seasons. Both modelling and actual experimentation in controlled environments and in fields suggest that yield response will vary depending on the crop species. In cool-season forage species, which are the predominant in the...

The impact of climate change on agriculture differs depending on the region and sector of activity. Predictive models suggest that climate change in eastern Canada will overall result in increased temperatures, changed precipitations patterns, and overall longer cropping seasons. Both modelling and actual experimentation in controlled environments and in fields suggest that yield response will vary depending on the crop species. In cool-season forage species, which are the predominant in the...

A field study was done on the thermal comfort of seven air-conditioned university classrooms in the hot and humid climate of Malaysia. The aims of this paper are to investigate the perceptions of thermal comfort and the adaptation method of students in air-conditioned classrooms. In total, 189 respondents from the classrooms completed the questionnaire. A comparison was made between the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and the Thermal Sensation Vote (TSV) and it was found that the TSV values tended...

Climate change will affect all of us, but most seriously affected will be those countries and people that depend primarily on agriculture and have few opportunities for economic diversification and structural change. Ethiopia, where the majority of the population lives in rural areas and is engaged in agriculture, is one of the most vulnerable countries. Its dependence on rain fed agriculture makes the country particularly exposed to the effects of climate change. Besides the direct effects...