School Space and Sustainability in the Tropics: The Case of Thermal Comfort in Brazil

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I read through this presentation and come out with the sense that it is one major edit away from being clearly organized and carried out. I would encourage the authors to seek several local reviews within their peer groups and do an overall rewrite resulting in a higher degree of focus and tie-ins with appropriate references and comparative examples.

Overall, I think the subject matter is important, but I lack the sense that its relevance may vary in different areas of a country as large and diverse as Brazil.

A repeated point that I think could be "unpacked" a bit more is how the overall procurement system seems to work only to default on the most conventional "solutions".  What in your view is the "politics" that accounts for this and makes it (apparently) so resistant to change.

Again, I find the choice of subject matter both fascinating and appropriate and encourage a reworking of the ms as presented to sharpen both its focus and conclusions.

 

The overall language quality is quite adequate.

Author Response

Items ticked in the review have been revised. English has also been revised. All the changes made in the text are highlighted. As for the specific comments from the referee:

We agree with the referee about the structure of the paper. The main point is not clear in parts of the article. The article underwent restructuring, added references and text to give greater support to the different sections. This, we think, helps to arrive to the conclusions in a more organic and natural way. The title has been modified. Section 3.2 has been merged with Section 3.1. Section 3.6 has been merged with section 3.7. Regarding the size of Brazil and its climatic, cultural, and geographic differences, it is obviously impossible to make a general analysis of the subject. Nevertheless, our analysis, focused more on the country's tropical regions, tries to highlight broader similarities, such as educational policies and state laws. To answer about why the state policies and governments are so resistant to change, we can say that it is not a priority of recent governments (focus being food security as said in the text), although now is slowly changing. Of course, a deeper analysis of Brazilian politics and understanding of educational policies must be made. Though it is a really important element, we feel that it is not in the scope of the paper.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper could be better placed in a larger theoretical framework. Who wrote about the topic before? What were their results? Something similar to what you did in section 3.3 (Thermal comfort in schools – a global debate) should be applied to all the concepts dealt with before in the paper. 

I think section 3.1. (The school as a space for food security) is just marginally related to the overall topic of discuss thermal comfort and school architecture. Obviously, climate change impacts local daily life in many ways, however I believe it's more appropriate to focus on a more narrow objective in your paper.

Line 130: In these studies (reference?)

Line 188: a new social contract for education is necessary (develop on this point a little - what does this contract involve?)

Lines 209-213: good point

Line 354: These documents (reference?)

Line 375: Rogério Haesbaert teaches us (reference?)

In conclusion, I believe your paper needs a survey or a a bibliometric analysis, some sort of concrete data collection. In its current form, it discusses the topic too generally and, obviously, it cannot bring concrete results, even though the points made are valid and worrying.

 

Line 140:  to conduct the content (I would replace it with "deliver the content")

Author Response

Items ticked in the review have been revised. English has also been revised. All the changes made in the text are highlighted. As for the specific comments from the referee:

The article underwent restructuring, added new references and text to give greater support to the sections. This, we think, helps to arrive to the conclusions in a more organic and natural way. The title has been modified. A bibliometric analysis was added to show the lack of studies on thermal comfort in Brazilian schools. Section 3.2 has been merged with Section 3.1. Section 3.6 has been merged with section 3.7. Although food security may be of secondary importance to the main subject of the article, we feel that it is important to show how central is school to people lives. References and text have been provided to the specific lines mentioned in the text (as the text was edited, the number lines changed). We intended, in this rewrite of the text, to highlight the importance of school space in Brazil and how this is not only a place for learning but also a safe space for a big part of the population. We intend to show how thermal comfort needs to play a bigger part within school, and how laws still trail behind on this matter.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I think it is an improvement that you added the bibliometric analysis, but I believe you move too quickly to the Results section. Section 3.3. should be included in the Methodology. Also, which software did you use to carry out the bibliometric analysis?

Line 205: Most papers (how many?)

 

English is fine. 

Author Response

As suggested by the reviewer, the first part of Section 3.3 was included in the methodology. Regarding the software used, we use the search tool of each database and then, as the number of results were low, we performed a manual analysis, reviewing each paper (this is explained in the text as it was absent in the prior version. Line 205 (most papers....) was rewritten. All the changes made in the text are highlighted (in a different colour from the second version)