How extreme heat is changing summer camp

Camps can survive climate change, but they have to adapt.

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A few summers ago, we signed our older kid up for a very outdoorsy camp. The organizers prided themselves on getting children comfortable with nature and the elements; they told us that kids would only go indoors if absolutely necessary.

Then, a punishing heat wave hit New York City. Our kid came home with a weird heat rash that took days to go away. Later that summer, smoke from Canadian wildfires forced the camp to take shelter at a nearby school.

My kid did not enjoy the experience, but I don’t blame the camp. Organizers around the country have had to change their programs or even cancel camp in response to extreme heat, smoke, and other realities of our modern summer.

The result is often a loss of outdoor time, which is critical for kids’ physical health and social development. That loss is especially troubling at a time when recess is dwindling, and school is becoming increasingly screen-based. Kids need as much summer as they can get.

It’s still possible to give campers the fun new experiences they need, experts say. But it takes a new layer of planning and adaptability as climate change, increasingly, factors into every decision.

“Our focus really should be not on less outdoor activity,” Allison Poulos, an assistant professor at Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions, told me. “It’s just smarter outdoor activity.”

What kids lose when it’s too hot for camp

As I’m writing this story, extreme heat warnings are affecting more than 160 million Americans as a “heat dome” closes over the Midwest and Northeast. In some parts of New York state, “feels like” temperatures are expected to go as high as 110 degrees.

This is, sadly, our new normal. Higher average temperatures due to climate change are making heat waves more common and extreme. “When a heat dome or a high-pressure system sets up, it’s now starting from a hotter floor,” Ashley Ward,........

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