The management of the school insists on the fact that these measures are not a game and have an important educational significance.
Argentina is suffocating. For nearly two weeks now, the South American country has been hit by a heat wave. Nationwide, it’s the hottest summer since 1961, and the statistics continue to rewrite themselves for the month of March: 38°C on March 3 in Buenos Aires, according to the National Meteorological Service (SMN ), the highest temperature ever recorded on this date.
Unprecedented situations call for unusual solutions. A school in Rosario has decided to allow children to come in swimsuits so they can spray them at recess, local media reported on Monday. A good compromise, while other schools in the country have chosen to keep the door closed until the mercury goes down.
“We have sent a note to families telling them that starting today, uniforms will no longer be compulsory until the alert is over. Instead, children are encouraged to come with comfortable clothes, they can come in bathing suits, sandals, with light clothes on top”, explains to BFMTV Marian Sanchez, director of the school establishment Francisco Gurruchaga.
Not a game
To this measure, it should be added that the pupils, at several times of the day, go out into the playground to cool off with the help of a garden hose. It is also a way of addressing the issue of climate change with them.
“You have to see it from a learning point of view,” director Marian Sanchez told the media this time. The capital. “We have never seen (a heat) like this, and the school must provide a response,” she said.
“The students cool off with a garden hose on their heads, I want to be clear, they cool off, they don’t play with running water,” she warns again.
Unprecedented heat wave
In addition to the high temperatures, this heat wave brings its share of inconveniences. In many neighborhoods of the Buenos Aires conurbation, power cuts, not unusual in summer, follow one another under the strong demand on the network, like the 200,000 homes without electricity on February 10, a particularly hot.
“A heat wave is part of normal climate variability. But with climate change, more persistent and intense waves are observed everywhere. And in Argentina, they also occur in Patagonia”, explains Enzo Campetella, an expert meteorologist independent. On February 9, the mercury had reached 42°C in Patagonia.
In fact, the heat wave is not only abnormal for the month of March, but also because of “its duration, seven days in Buenos Aires” instead of three on average, underlines Cindy Fernandez, meteorologist of the SMN.
