Using climate projections to assessincreasing student exposure to hightemperatures This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Membercountries of the OECD. This document, as well as any data and map included herein, are without prejudice to the status of or sovereigntyover any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, cityor area. The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use ofsuch data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlementsin the West Bank under the terms of international law. Please cite this publication as:OECD (2026),Using climate projections to assess increasing student exposure to high temperaturesOECD Publishing,Paris. Photo credits: Cover © Halfpoint/Shutterstock © OECD 2026 Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. By using this work, you accept to be bound by theterms of this licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Attribution– you must cite the work. Translations– you must cite the original work, identify changes to the original and add the following text: In the event of any discrepancy betweenthe original work and the translation, only the text of original work should be considered valid. Adaptations– you must cite the original work and add the following text: This is an adaptation of an original work by the OECD. The opinionsexpressed and arguments employed in this adaptation should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its Membercountries. Third-party material– the licence does not apply to third-party material in the work. If using such material, you are responsible for obtainingpermission from the third party and for any claims of infringement. You must not use the OECD logo, visual identity or cover image without express permission or suggest the OECD endorses your use of the work. Any dispute arising under this licence shall be settled by arbitration in accordance with the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ArbitrationRules 2012. The seat of arbitration shall be Paris (France). The number of arbitrators shall be one. Table of contents 1. Introduction32. Bringing together climate projections and school locations43. Local and aggregate insights into present and future exposure to hot days114. Conclusion14 Tables Table2.1 Number of primary schools and students that can be matched to climate variables (2024)4Table2.2 Best estimate of the rise in global surface temperature under the five SSP scenarios in the IPCCSixth Assessment Report5 TableAA.1. Fraction of themonth outside school holidays15 Figures Figure2.1.Geographical distribution of observed and projected average number of hot days per year (1983-2016 and 2050)6Figure2.2 Extracting climate information from grids using school locations in the province of Puntarenas(Costa Rica)8Figure3.1 Observed and projected student exposure to hot days in Colombia (1983-2016 and 2050)11Figure3.2. Projected change in student exposure to hot days in France and England by 205012Figure3.3. Distribution of students by school exposure to hot days, by climate scenario (1983-2016 and 2050)13 FigureAA.1. Distribution of students by school exposure to hot days, adjusted to reflect the school calendar(1983-2016 and 2050) 16 1.Introduction This technical paper provides a methodology to derive the exposure of schools and students to risingtemperatures. It accompanies a policy brief that summarises the results and discusses its policyimplications: OECD (2025), “What are the likely impacts of rising temperatures onstudentsand how are countriesadapting?”,Education Indicators in FocusBrief, No.91, OECD Publishing, Paris,. Adapting school systems to rising temperatures is essential part of safeguarding students and teachersfrom mounting environmental pressures affecting their well-being and ability to work and learn. As well asrising temperatures, these pressures include extreme weather events like heatwaves, floods and wildfires,all of which are increasing in magnitude and frequency(IPCC, 2023[1]). The firststep towards adapting school systemsto rising temperatureslies inidentifying those most at risk.This paper provides amethodologyforassessinghow manyschools and studentsare at risk of beingexposed to higher temperaturesby2050. Itusesschool location data from the OECD 2024 ad-hoc surveyon primary schoolsalongsidegranular climate projections from the Climate Hazards Centre Coupled ModelIntercomparison Project Phase 6 (CHC-CMIP6)(Williams etal., 2024[2]). Combining these two datasetsenables the creation of aggregate indicators suitable for cross-cou