Making the trek between classes is difficult enough when your campus is on a hill, but the added fact that you are on campus during the summer, instead of vacationing with friends, is worsened by record-breaking heat.
It is a summer the Bay Area will not forget. The record-setting temperatures are in the triple digits. In fact, the week of June 10 began with a high of 104 degrees, only to reach 107 degrees a day later.
The heat has an impact on campus activities. All Sports Camp is a summer program run by the Athletic Department of California State University, East Bay. It provides an active experience for grade school and middle school students to attend.
It is an all-day camp where kids are playing soccer, football, volleyball, and indoor dodgeball in a 30-minute rotation, according to Maddie Ramirez, one of the camp’s coordinators.
Ramirez explained that students who attend the camp are encouraged to bring a refillable water bottle so that they can stay hydrated throughout the day. Besides bringing their own water bottle, they are also encouraged to bring their own sunscreen to fight the sun’s rays.
The challenge that the camp faces is that they are doing outdoor activities during the hottest hours of the day. To take their chances against the heat, the students who attend the camp are taken to the swimming pool to take a dip and cool off.
Esteban Leon, another staff member of the camp, said that he notices a change in the mood of the students during the day due to the heatwave.
“Since the majority of their sports are outdoors, the kids will get tired a lot quicker in this weather because it is not what they are used to,” Leon said.
He also said that he has seen the domino effect that happens when one kid sits out due to being tired more and more begin to follow, it gets to the point where they have to stop the activity to take a water break and take them inside the classroom to cool off.
Staff members collectively worry about the student’s safety and always give them water breaks throughout the day to avoid dehydration. Due to the heat, water breaks are usually taken in the shade.
The summer of 2019 has only just begun but it has shown us already that it is going to be a hot one.