On Jan. 15, 2026 at 12:15 p.m, coach Kathryn Klamecki checked the school’s official weather report—a routine she repeats frequently to ensure the safety of student athletes. On this day, the temperature was measured at 79 degrees Fahrenheit.
A few streets to the west, at the exact same time, the temperature read 58 F. Heading east, the temperature stretched up to 80 F. Within a quarter mile area, the average temperature measured at 72 F.
The thermal changes may seem trivial, but each fluctuation directly impacts our living standards. These differences are, to an extent, impacted by the ground we walk on and the roofs we reside under. Our roads, parking lots and other infrastructure participate in breaking Oak Park into microclimates—with OPHS campus being one of them.
Temperature influences a microclimate, and it fluctuates due to the materials, colors, site plan and shading of a location. On campus, heat-absorbing and, uncoincidentally, unnatural materials contribute to the rising heat issue.
The entirety of OPHS walkways are made of concrete. The asphalt parking lots passively heat the air. The I-building is made of metal shipping containers, with surface temperatures exceeding 135 F during the day.
By studying the extremity of the urban heat island effect—a measured phenomenon where metropolitan cities are noticeably warmer than near rural areas due to their built environment—patterns can be detected, revealing easily implementable solutions for the rising temperatures in our own, smaller town.
A property of every infrastructure is thermal mass—a material’s ability to absorb, store and release heat. When night falls, the heat, retained through sunlight, is released into the atmosphere. High thermal mass, a characteristic of materials such as concrete and asphalt, indicates a significantly higher retention rate for heat, increasing the temperature of a building and its surrounding area.
However, changing the material composition of our campus would be financially infeasible. For example, it cost nearly 3 million dollars in 2014 to deconstruct the I-buildings and rebuild them using eco-friendly architecture.
So, the solution shifts to focus on another factor: albedo, or the proportion of light reflected by a surface. When observing the effects of color on temperature, it was discovered that darker colored roofs absorb more sunlight than they reflect, meaning that they significantly increase the average temperature inside buildings.
Conversely, lighter colors, having a high albedo, reflect more light than they absorb, as evidenced in the NYC CoolRoofs project, where over 12 million square–feet of New York rooftops were painted with light-reflective paint, dropping indoor temperatures by 2.2–5.9 F. Painting roofs with lighter, high albedo colors will reduce the temperature of the immediate area, thereby creating a cooler microclimate.
But why stop at roofs? A longer-lasting solution could be t0 paint the walls of buildings with light reflective paints. Although walls receive less sunlight than roofs, they are easier to maintain. They stay cleaner, and are proven to reduce temperatures consistently over time.
In addition to fixing buildings, our school can join the city of Los Angeles in covering our black asphalt parking lots and roads with paint.
If we painted only 1,000 square feet of our 121,818 square-foot campus with commercially available light paints—which reflect 80% to 90% of sunlight—there would be a cooling effect of around 10,000 watts. For comparison, air conditioners tend to produce anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 watts depending on the building. In short, these heat initiatives save money. So, with these statistics, I invite the OPHS administration to consider what OPHS teacher Ashley Michelin asked my classmates and I in FOS Physics over a year and a half ago:
“How could a change in color, how could additional areas of shade, how could small tweaks potentially lead to a cooler campus?”
The answer is simpler and more affordable than it seems.
