As temperatures rise across Illinois, the IHSA and state-wide administrators have been taking precautions this past week to prevent health risks. Practices were canceled and rescheduled for later dates, games were postponed for later times, and gym classes had to change their schedules as a result of the excessive heat in the gym and field house.
“Because some areas, like the dance room, are air conditioned, and some aren’t, like the field house, students weren’t required to dress for gym,” P.E. teacher Kim Sanko said. “We weren’t sure if students would or wouldn’t be dressing this week at all, but they will be required to do so Friday as the heat will die down.”
Instead of having students do strenuous activities on Wednesday and Thursday, students reviewed gym expectations to prepare for the upcoming semester. The end of the week proved more of a test run to prepare students for the routine of changing and arriving on time to the locker rooms.
Sports required the cancellation of games and practices. Some sports changed times to the morning where they were out of the heat.
“All practices were modified to ensure safety,” Athletic director Chet Lines said. “The football game on the other hand could be possibly postponed if it were to get too hot.”
In order to determine whether students would be able to practice outside or not, a wet bulb was used to measure the temperature at different times.
There are quite distinctive differences between the weather outside (which can be found on a phone weather app) and the wet bulb measurements. The regular temperature on a phone’s weather app relies on environmental data, air temperature, humidity, and wind speed. The wet bulb on the other hand indicates the expected stress on the human body when it comes into direct contact with sunlight, and it does so by measuring criterias like heat, cloud cover, humidity, and wind.
The wet bulb has five different categories: green, yellow, orange, red, and black. On the bulb, green (79.9) or lower, indicates that it would be safe for students to practice and partake in games. Yellow (80.0-85.5) warns for discretion to be used with short breaks provided. Orange (84.6-87.5) limits practice to about two hours. Contests may conclude if temperature moves to orange mid, but no new contests may be started if the temperature is already in this range. Red (87.7-89.9) indicates a limit of 1 hour practice. Anything higher than that signifies no activities whatsoever.
“The important thing to note is that the temperatures on a phone weather app and the wet bulb itself are very different,” Lines said. “It’s important for students to differentiate between the two so we don’t get that confused.”
In order to keep the players safe from the heat, some conditions were placed depending on what color range the wet bulb temperature resided. For example, if in orange, players would not be required to wear anything but a helmet, shoulder pads for football. If the temperature rose, they’d be required to wear no pads at all.
