canary schools heat adaptation

Canary schools swelter as heatwave marks new term

Compiled with the help of artificial intelligence, based on Spanish-language information. Source below the article.

Back to school under a heatwave

The new school year has begun much as the last one ended: dominated by heat. Nearly three months on, pupils returned to the classroom today amid extreme temperatures across most of the Canary Islands, with this September shaping up to be one of the hottest since records began. The State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) has extended its yellow alert for episodes of temperatures that could exceed 36 degrees until tonight, when thermometers are finally expected to start dropping.

The problem, already palpable back in May and June, is once again the dominant talking point for countless students as they head back to school. With the intense heat showing no sign of relenting, the need to adapt school infrastructure to ensure proper learning conditions has become ever more pressing.

Pilot project to monitor classrooms

In response, the Canary Islands government’s Education Department presented a pilot project at the start of the summer called Clima Escolar Canarias. Its aim is to monitor thermal conditions in real time across 120 educational centres. The system, powered by a network of sensors measuring temperature, humidity and CO₂ levels, provides instant insight into conditions both inside and outside the classroom, and is already operational for the 2026/2027 academic year.

In parallel, the department has told this newspaper that trials have been carried out with various solutions to combat the heat in schools. These include the installation of adiabatic cooling systems – based on a thermodynamic transformation without heat exchange with the surroundings – and the treatment of windows to limit heat entering and reduce temperatures inside classrooms.

Shade zones progress falls short

Efforts also extend to greening school grounds and expanding shaded areas, one of the measures that has advanced most on the ground. To date, 346 educational centres already have such spaces – 186 more than were planned for last year – although some work remains unfinished. Despite this progress, the figure represents barely 38.5% of the total, meaning only two in five educational centres in the Canary Islands currently have shaded areas or have works under way to install them.

The regional education minister, Poli Suárez, acknowledged in an interview with Canarias7 that completing some of these projects was proving slow, largely due to difficulties faced by contractors in sourcing the necessary materials.

Opposition cries foul

However, the department’s measures continue to draw criticism from the opposition. “What they are doing is clearly insufficient,” said Carmen Hernández, an MP for Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista (NC-BC), during a parliamentary committee hearing on 9 July, referring to the Education Department’s response to high temperatures in classrooms. Hernández accused the department of not even buying fans and reminded members that her party had put forward a project to adapt schools to climate change, including measures such as thermal insulation of facades and roofs, improvements to encourage cross-ventilation, and the provision of shaded areas. That initiative was rejected.

The minister defended the progress made in any case, pointing out that previously no protocol even existed – unlike the current adaptation plan for high temperatures – to deal with such situations.

Greenpeace calls for structural reform

Nor is the criticism confined to the Canary Islands. With temperatures rising nationwide, Greenpeace has set out a series of solutions to tackle the problem of heat in classrooms. The organisation is calling for structural reforms based on efficient, decarbonised climate control in educational centres. For outdoor spaces, it highlights the greening of playgrounds as key to providing cooler conditions and delivering both physical and cognitive benefits for pupils.

Alongside these measures, the environmental group stresses the need to equip schools with sufficient budgets and to improve coordination between administrations – two elements it considers fundamental if the adaptation of educational infrastructure is to succeed.

Rising temperatures laid bare in the data

This need is particularly evident in the archipelago, where rising temperatures are already leaving their mark on the records. Since 1950, Santa Cruz de Tenerife has registered an average temperature 0.5 degrees above its historical mean this year, along with 37% more warm days in July than 75 years ago. In Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the increase is even greater. As the end of summer approaches, the city is running 0.8 degrees above its historical average, placing it 12th among the warmest years since 1950.

The data points to a scenario in which episodes of extreme heat are becoming increasingly frequent, while the adaptation of educational centres advances at an uneven pace. Measures such as shaded areas, thermal monitoring and trials of various systems to reduce heat in classrooms are already under way, but a large proportion of schools still lack the necessary provisions to cope with these temperatures. The question now is to what extent educational infrastructure is prepared for a climate scenario showing a sustained trend towards ever higher temperatures.

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