Heat Watchers

Climate disasters disproportionately impact vulnerable populations. The citizen science initiative (CSI) Heat Watchers in Action focuses on the unique experiences of extreme heat faced by vulnerable urban households with children by engaging them as citizen scientists to monitor indoor heat and co-create urban adaptation. During the first edition developed in the summer of 2024 in metropolitan Barcelona, we engaged a hundred children as heat watchers and 200 stakeholders in capacity-building and outreach activities.

We expect to maximize the CSI’s replication potential and impact, by leveraging this initial experience. Our project expects to accelerate and enable equitable and child-oriented adaptation to climate change, contribute to disaster risk reduction and energy poverty alleviation (especially during childhood), increase science literacy and trust in science, and generate innovative, participatory, and policy-oriented research on children’s thermal comfort and wellbeing, as well as on climate resilient housing and cities.