School classroom thermal environments could impact on thermal comfort and learning performance. Currently, the majority of research on the school indoor thermal environment has been focusing on urban areas, but notably little research has been conducted on rural schools. A field study was undertaken during the winter in Northwestern China, in order to investigate the indoor thermal environment and the impact on students’ thermal comfort and learning performance in rural primary and secondary schools. Through subjective surveys and objective measurements, we gathered 763 sets of data and questionnaires. Together with the measured air temperature, relative humidity, air velocity, globe temperature, teenagers’ activity levels and clothing insulation levels, the sensations of the indoor air conditions and the learning performance were evaluated. The current thermal environment situation in rural schools was identified. The neutral temperature was found to be approximately 15.0℃ with an average clothing insulation of 1.6 clo. Overall, the environment is satisfactory and comfortable. Moreover, the results from the students’ fatigue testing demonstrated the temperature corresponding to the highest learning performance is lower than the actual neutral temperature by about 1.0℃. The basic parameters of our findings have provided a future reference for improvement of the thermal environment in rural schools.

Series of field tests were conducted during the winter in rural Northwest China, to assess the current indoor thermal environment and to obtain different heating models and the indoor heating design temperature of each function room. The results show that the average indoor air temperature is significantly higher with heating than that without heating, with high levels of residents’ dissatisfaction under both conditions. The indoor activities patterns of rural residents are relatively similar. New heating models suitable for rural buildings were identified. The analysis about the evaluation of average thermal sensation levels showed that the comfortable indoor temperature range of the active state was higher than that of the sleep state. The indoor heating design temperature of different function rooms measured over different time periods were obtained. Both increasing clothing insulation in the active state and bed heating in the sleep state could reduce the demands for indoor heating. These results could serve as a basis for the design of new heating technologies which can improve current indoor thermal environment conditions.