LAKEVILLE, Minn. — The heat and poor air quality combination this week could pose a few problems for young kids.
At the YMCA’s Gathering Pines outdoor camp in Lakeville, camp counselors are taking extra precautions to keep kids safe.
“We’ve been having discussions with our camp counselors, asking them to check in with their kids more often and asking them to take more water breaks,” day camp director Niall Murton says.
More than 450 kids will attend camp this week, and Murton says they want to make sure every single one of those kids is safe.
“We’re doing things like limiting running games and strenuous activity. We’re going to play a lot more water games to stay cool and rotating kids inside the buildings throughout the day to give them a break from the heat,” Murton explains.
Counselors say keeping kids safe from the heat and poor air quality is easy, all they have to do is keep the kids inside all day.
Counselors say the difficult task is keeping kids safe while keeping them entertained.
“That’s the hard part,” Murton laughs. “We really work hard to “hype” them up with certain activities. For some of them, it’s like ‘Why can’t we do outside? What do you mean? It’s fine. I can do that.’ We work hard to make sure they are having fun and staying safe.”
Dr. Adam Foss at M Health Fairview says the bad air quality this week could speed up heal-related illnesses like heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
"How we do get rid of some heat during the day is through breathing,” Dr. Foss explains. “And this air quality can affect your ability to breathe.”
If kids can't take full, deep breaths, Dr. Foss says kids could heat up faster and lose more water and get dehydrated.
“If you have a kid who is really affected by asthma or other breathing issues you really should limit their time outdoors to really short periods,” Dr. Foss says.
Dr. Foss says the number one thing that parents and camp counselors can do to keep kids safe is to keep them hydrated.
Murton says hydration will be their main focus this week.
"We’re asking them all the time, every group that goes by I tell them look, I drank three water bottles already, how about you? They love that challenge and they're like well I'm going to do that.”