Addressing the Impact of Extreme Heat on Young Children
Watch as panelists highlight strategies that minimize the impacts of extreme heat on young children, from increasing green space to policy innovations.
Developmental Environments
Climate change is affecting the experiences and exposures that shape early childhood development, including recent record-breaking heat across the United States.
Practical, actionable solutions exist to reduce the impact of extreme heat on children and caregivers, and many communities are already implementing them to good effect.
In this conversation, panelists highlight strategies that minimize the impacts of extreme heat on young children, from increasing green space to policy innovations. They share specific ideas to support local efforts and provide new ways to cool the places where children live, grow, play, and learn.
Panelists
Lindsey C. Burghardt, MD, MPH, FAAP
Dr. Lindsey Burghardt is the Chief Science Officer at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, where she develops and leads the Center’s scientific agenda. She is the founding director of the Center’s Early Childhood Scientific Council on Equity and the Environment, a multidisciplinary group that synthesizes and translates scientific mechanisms related to the many ways that the built and natural environments impact children’s development and lifelong health.
Michelle Kang
Michelle Kang is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), which is dedicated to promoting high-quality early learning for all children. Michelle also serves on the Advisory Board for the Communicating the Connections Between Climate Change and Early Childhood research project.
Jennifer Vanos, PhD
Dr. Jennifer Vanos is an associate professor in the School of Sustainability and the College of Global Futures at Arizona State University. Dr. Vanos is also Chair of the American Meteorological Society’s Board on Environment & Health and a co-author for the new Heat & Health guidance for the World Health Organization.
