A study of the thermal comfort of primary school children in summer

A study of the thermal comfort and clothing of primary school children aged 7–9 took place during the summers of 1971 and 1972. Of the 641 children who took part, 262 produced records suitable for analysis. The weight of clothing followed the trend of room temperature over several days, but did not respond to diurnal changes of temperature. The subjective warmth followed the variations of room temperature, but was not related to the mean temperatures of the classrooms, which were between 17° and 23°. The children differed significantly among themselves in their subjective response to temperature, but there was no appreciable difference between the responses of the boys and the girls. Thermal comfort distributions are presented and their implications for classroom temperatures are discussed.