• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Do you consider this to be too cold?

Miss Chicken

Little three legged cat with attitude
Admiral
Read this story in today's newspaper

Some Central Australian parents have expressed outrage after a group of children was given detention because they would not get into a swimming pool.
About 20 students from the Centralian Middle School in Alice Springs refused to swim because they felt it was too cold.
The water and air temperature was about 23 degrees Celsius at the time.
Mother Janet Brown says teachers need to respect a child's choice not to jump in cold water on a cold day.
"If the kids don't want to jump in it's because they're concerned for their personal health," she said.
Rest of story here

23C is around 73F.

Where I live 23 is considered a warm day :) and certainly children would swim in a pool on such a day. Many of them would even go swimming at the beach when it was that temperature.
 
That's probably a bit too cool. But then we all know I have the metabolism of a Cardassian, so that may be slightly skewed. (I've been known, in hotels, to run the temperature up to almost 80 F in the winter--that would be about 26 to you--because it's not my bill. ;) )

Then again, a child is also less able to retain heat...
 
I wouldn't be swimming if it was 73F...bump it up to 83F. :)
 
Well, there's a big difference between air temperature and water temperature. Water conducts heat away from the body much faster than air does. Most people find 68°F (20°C) weather quite comfortable, but water at that temperature is downright chilly.

We used to keep our pool at around 78°F (25.5°C). 73 degrees probably would have felt a tad cool at first, but easy to get used to after swimming a couple of laps or just splashing around a bit. Anyway, you Aussies are supposed to be a hardy, outdoorsy bunch, right?
 
I'd have to be highly motivated to swim when the air temperature is that low. It's not too cold, but it would be unpleasant. Of course, threats of detention might motivate me. It's not unhealthy to swim in water that cold, I just wouldn't do it recreationally unless either the temperature never gets any higher (or if the temperature is lower and it was a polar bear swim).

Nice for a non-swimming day, though.
 
Hell, our swim coach took us north of San Francisco and made us swim out to the sandbar.

If your lips don't turn blue, it's not too cold.
 
I don't think that's too cold at all. Especially for what I'm assuming was an organized swimming lesson? Once you get moving around and swimming, you wouldn't notice the temperature at all.

(This concludes the obligatory Canadian scoffing at people from a warm country complaining about cold)
 
I grew up swimming in the Puget Sound, where the water temperature in the summer is around 53 degrees F (12C), and the air temperature in the summer is usually in the low to mid 70's. 73 sounds lovely.
 
The average maximum daily temperature in Hobart during January and February (our hottest months) is around 23C.

As a teenager I used to go to the pool quite a bit during those months so I went at times when the temperature was above, and at other times below 23C.

There is no school in Tasmania during January and half of February which means that my school swimming lessons were held in months when the daily average maximum was under 20C. We had our swimming lessons in an outdoor pool.
 
For a swimming pool, yeah, I'd say it's definitely pretty cold. You'd have to belong to the polar bear club to want to jump into water like that. Oh wait, nevermind. Thought you meant -23. I was in the frame of mind of us getting into winter weather until I remembered you're in the Southern Hemisphere. I'd say it's pretty warm. But it also depends on how long the sun's been shining on it.
 
It's a little cold for swimming imo, but once you're in the water the outside temperature matters very little anyway, and 23° is a perfectly reasonable water temperature in a swimming pool.
 
Water temperature of a swimming pool at the olympic games is between 25 and 28 degrees Celsius. So yeah, 23 is a bit cold. ;)
 
That would have been positively warm compared to the pools I swam in at school. And 'on a cold day' is ridiculous. 23ºC is pretty darn mild.
 
Well, 23C might be a little cold for lounging lazily in a pool, but it's perfectly good for doing physical activity. If some kids dislike it, though. They are not concerned for their health, they are just being lazy. If the teacher says "jump in the water", you ask "how deep?" ;)
 
I don't think that is cold at all, though I've been known to swim in mid-50s F water. Definitely not a health risk.
 
I don't care what the temperature was. I don't think anyone has the right to force a kid to do anything s/he is uncomfortable doing unless it's essential to ensure their safety (like jumping from a second story window to escape a fire).
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top