Data informed resilience protecting children and young people from heat stress via wearable techology in physical education lessons: A design thinking approach

Climate change is reshaping the conditions under which children and young people learn and move. Rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves expose pupils to increased physiological strain, heightening risks to health, wellbeing, and learning during Physical Education (PE). While heat-safety guidance exists, it remains largely reactive, threshold-based, and externally imposed, offering limited pedagogical support for teachers’ real-time decision-making or children’s understanding of their own physiological responses.

This paper conceptualises children’s heat stress as a pedagogical design problem arising from persistent mismatches between physiological strain, perceptual awareness, and educational practice. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature and prior research on children’s hydration and perceptual mismatches in physical activity (PA), the paper synthesises evidence on physiological vulnerability, differential risk (including obesity, diabetes, and medication-related thermoregulatory impairment), and educational impact.

Using Chambers et al.’s (2019) design thinking framework aligned with Quality Physical Education (QPE), the paper advances a wearable-informed pedagogical model. Wearable technologies are framed not as surveillance or performance tools but as educational mediators and instructional tools that make invisible physiological processes visible, interpretable, and discussable for learning, self-regulation, and safeguarding in PE. Benefits are critically evaluated alongside ethical, psychological, and equity-related constraints. An implementation-oriented infographic is presented as a knowledge mobilisation artefact for both teachers and researchers.

The paper concludes with a call for climate-resilient PE, positioning data-informed pedagogy as a means of enhancing children’s heat literacy, supporting teachers’ professional judgement, and reducing heat-related risk under conditions of environmental uncertainty.