Field study was conducted in naturally ventilated primary school buildings in a warm and humid environment in Imo State, Nigeria to determine the thermal comfort perception of young children (aged 7–12 years) and to understand the thermal conditions in the classrooms. The comfort temperature was investigated in two types of classroom buildings during the rainy and dry seasons from October 2017 to May 2018. Approximately 7050 completed valid questionnaires were collected from 330 young children repeatedly surveyed twice a day. The children answered comfort questions at the same time the indoor and outdoor thermal variables were being measured. Results indicated that the combined ‘open-space’ classrooms produced a neutral temperature of 28.8°C with comfort range, 25.2–32.3°C. The neutral temperature of the combined ‘enclosed-plan’ classrooms is 28.1°C with 25.8–30.5°C as the comfort range. The differences in the comfort perceptions may be attributed to the differences in the architectural characteristics of both categories of classroom buildings. High temperature tolerance was shown by the participating children in the study area. This article, therefore, suggests that installing air conditioning in primary schools in the warm humid environment in Nigeria may not be necessary as it could lead to unnecessary energy consumption and carbon emission.

Practical application: This work is part of the main research work that pioneers research on thermal comfort in public primary school classrooms in Nigeria. The findings from this study on the acceptable indoor temperatures in naturally ventilated classrooms in the warm and humid climate in Nigeria are important information for building services engineers and architects. The young children in these classrooms can accept high indoor temperatures. The intention of this information is to discourage high energy usage in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system in primary school buildings in the study area, while maintaining the acceptable thermal comfort levels.

在尼日利亚伊莫州温暖潮湿的环境中，对自然通风的小学建筑进行了现场研究，以确定对幼儿（7至12岁）的热舒适感，并了解教室的热状况。在2017年10月至2018年5月的雨季和旱季期间，对两类教室建筑的舒适温度进行了调查。从每天重复调查两次的330名幼儿中收集了大约7050份有效问卷。孩子们在测量室内和室外热变量的同时回答了舒适性问题。结果表明，组合的“开放空间”教室产生的中性温度为28.8°C，舒适范围为25.2-32.3°C。组合式“封闭式”教室的中性温度为28。1°C，舒适范围为25.8–30.5°C。舒适感的差异可能归因于两类教室建筑的建筑特性差异。研究区域的参与儿童显示出对高温的耐受性。因此，本文建议，在尼日利亚温暖潮湿的环境中的小学安装空调可能不是必需的，因为这可能导致不必要的能源消耗和碳排放。

实际应用：这项工作是主要研究工作的一部分，该工作开创了尼日利亚公立小学教室热舒适性研究的先河。这项研究得出的关于尼日利亚温暖湿润的自然通风教室中可接受的室内温度的研究结果对于建筑服务工程师和建筑师而言是重要的信息。这些教室中的幼儿可以接受较高的室内温度。此信息的目的是阻止研究区域内小学建筑的采暖，通风和空调（HVAC）系统中的高能耗，同时保持可接受的热舒适度。