Science Smarts: Sun safety first
By PATTY ROOKS on July 1, 2023.
I do believe summer will officially start this weekend – I know the students are done school and now many of us are ready for a reason to celebrate. It has been a hot week, and I am sure it is going to get even hotter this summer. This makes me think sun safety should be a priority for all of us. Each and every one of us should wear sunscreen when outside and this week, I hope to show you why. Let’s get started! Remember to ask an adult before doing this experiment. Materials – Two sheets of black construction paper – Paint brush – Sunny location – Sunscreen (SPF of your choice) – Paper plate – Stopwatch or clock – Piece of masking tape – Pencil Procedure 1. Fold the paper in half. 2. Squeeze a little bit of the sunscreen onto the paper plate. 3. Using the paintbrush, draw a design on one half of the construction paper. 4. Repeat for the other piece of paper. 5. On the second piece of paper, place a small piece of masking tape on the top and write: “once” on this paper. This will help you tell which piece of paper you only applied sunscreen to once for the experiment. 6. Set the papers out in the sun. 7. Set the stopwatch for one hour. 8. After one hour, reapply sunscreen to the paper that is not marked with the masking tape. 9. Repeat throughout the day. 10. If you have time, you may want to repeat with different SPF’s of sunscreen to see which is more effective. What is going on? In this experiment, the construction paper represented your skin. The paper you only applied sunscreen to once will have faded quite a bit. You will be able to see the outlines of where you applied the sunscreen versus the side of the paper that had no sunscreen. The side with absolutely no sunscreen will be all shrivelled up and faded terribly. When comparing the two, it does show us that the sunscreen did help. If it did this kind of damage just to paper, can you imagine what the sun is doing to our skin when we are outside every day without protection? If you compare this to the second paper in which you applied sunscreen throughout the day, you will see that this paper has minimal damage from the sun. Hopefully this shows you the importance of applying your sunscreen at regular intervals throughout the day, it does wear off and we will need several applications throughout the day to protect us fully. Patty Rooks, Senior Scientific Consultant PRAXIS, “Connecting Science To The Community”. Contact Praxis at praxis@praxismh.ca, http://www.praxismh.ca, Tweet or follow us @PraxisMedHat, or friend us on Facebook. Address: #12 826 11 Street S. E., Medicine Hat, Alberta, T1A 1T7 Phone: 403.527.5365, email: praxis@praxismh.ca. 28-27
