Schools
Each school had a volunteer school liaison selected by
the principal. Most of the liaisons were school nurses or
health education teachers. They served as ongoing advocates
and were essential to gaining access to teachers
and other school personnel to conduct training and classroom presentations. At the first school presentation,
teachers were offered access to brief curricular activities
that could be incorporated into the existing curriculum.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s SunWise curricular
materials19 and additional activities we designed for
art, language arts, and social studies enabled us to provide
options for all subjects.
In the second and third years, project staff with physical
education teachers conducted a 45-minute activity
for all students. First, there was an interactive slide show
about UV radiation and skin cancer and sun-protection
strategies. This was followed by each student viewing his
or her face in the Dermascan. Students could also view
their teachers’ and friends’ faces. This activity helped us
incorporate a more immediate message about the risk to
appearance, which has been shown to increase motivation
to change sun exposure in older adolescents.20
In addition, teachers were recruited to form and lead
a group of 8th- to 12th-grade students, called a “sun
team,” to conduct peer-education activities. Each
teacher received a small stipend, and their team had a
small budget to support their activities. Teams met from
March to June. The project staff developed a manual
containing step-by-step directions for potential activities,
but the teams were encouraged to develop their own
ideas and activities. In the first year, teams held poster
contests, videotaped performances of sun-safety messages,
sold student-created buttons as fundraisers for the
local American Cancer Society, promoted sun safety at
school outdoor events, and presented weekly public service
announcements on the school public-announcement
system. Each school conducted at least 3 activities.
Ideas were shared with other participating schools, and
the most popular activities, poster contests, and weekly announcements were repeated in the second and third
years. The liaison also served as an ongoing advocate for
sun protection within the school setting. This led to sun
safety being incorporated into school health fairs and
inclusion of sun protection on school outdoor-trip permission
forms.