Year 5 – 6 | SunSmart Teen Warning

Protecting My Skin full resource download  |  Concept 4: Keeping Your Skin Sun Safe download

Background

This lesson aims to educate students about tanning and reflect on their personal views around tanning and sun protection
practices. This activity involves students reading a news article, completing an activity sheet and creating a quiz using
content from the article.

Key messages

• Research has established that childhood and adolescence are critical periods during which sun exposure could
  contribute to skin cancer later in life
• Worrying statistics show that 62 per cent of children aged between 12 and 17 think that a tan is a good thing
• Tanning or any change of colour on your skin that is caused by UV radiation is a sign of skin damage. It is a sign of an
  increase in the production of melanin, which is your skins attempt to protect it from further damage. Tanning is skin
  cells in trauma
• A tan is not healthy. Any tan is an injury to the skin, putting you at risk not only of premature ageing of the skin but also
  skin cancer
• Teenagers need to be aware and practice the sun safe message to protect their skin from over exposure to UV radiation.
• The sun produces UVA (skin damage/skin cancer, ageing, wrinkles), UVB (sunburn, skin cancer) and UVC (doesn’t reach
  earth).
• When the UV Index is 3 or above, sun protection is required
  There are 5 ways to protect your skin from the sun: Slip, Slop, Slap, Seek and Slide.

Resources

• SunSmart teen warning article and audio
• Access to a device or shared screen
• Online quiz platforms
• Activity sheet: Kids News Response

Instructions

1. Ask key questions to activate prior knowledge around tanning.
2. View teen warning article and discuss
3. Share ideas, questions, thoughts and opinions as a class.
4. Complete the activity sheet.
5. Extension: Create a quiz using content from the video.

Key questions

• What are your views about tanning? Do you think it is harmful? Why or why not?
• Why are health professionals worried about tanning?
• Why do you think most teens are ignoring the health warnings?
• Why does Mrs. Madigan worry about applying fake tan?
• How can you convince your peers that tanning is unsafe?
• What changes are you going make to protect your skin?