Publication: California Healthline

UCLA Expert: V. Kelly Turner: Assistant Professor, Urban Planning; Assistant Professor, Geography; Co-Director, Luskin Center for Innovation; Associate Director of Urban Environment Research, Luskin Center for Innovation; Member, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

Synopsis: A policy brief published last month by the UCLA Luskin Center offers a series of recommendations on how education and building codes can help schools become more heat-resilient in the face of global warming.

UCLA News: “Obviously, the California Education Board wasn’t set up to think about climate change. But now that climate change is a reality, virtually every sector is going to have to think about it,” Turner said. To help schools make the best use of funding for extra trees, Turner and her graduate student Morgan Rogers are modeling how increasing the tree canopy to 30% can affect heat stress. They will compare different tree configurations, like dispersed or clustered, and hope to issue recommendations this fall.

Read more at California Healthline.