Arizona Educators

 

Project SASS (Students are Sun Safe)

A sun safety program for middle and high school students.

What is it? Project SASS is an interactive sun safety PowerPoint presentation with music, animations, and video clips followed by three educational, hands-on activities. It is designed to fit into a 55 minute class period.

Who teaches it? University of Arizona students in the health professions are trained as peer educators to teach Project SASS to middle school and high school students.
 
Why is it important? Arizona has a high rate of skin cancer. Project SASS teaches students how to be sun safe and stay skin cancer free.
 
Please contact us at contactsci@uacc.arizona.edu or 1-888-724-2749 for more information on Project SASS. You can also visit the SASS website at: SASSproject.org  

 

Protect Your Skin in the schools

Great news for our kids! Arizona legislators passed Bill 2134, legalizing the use of sunscreen in Arizona schools. This means that all schools can now make sunscreen available to their students, support its use in the schools, and even help students apply it. Skin cancer is a huge problem in Arizona, and much of the damage we do to our skin happens in childhood! Practicing sun safe behaviors like covering up and wearing sunscreen in childhood years greatly reduces the risk of developing skin cancer later in life.

The Skin Cancer Institute is a strong supporter of sun safety, and would like to help you encourage sunscreen use in your school. We have a program designed specifically to help make sunscreen available called “Protect Your Skin” (PYS).

Learn more here.

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SunWise™

 

The National Environmental Education Foundation's (NEEF) "SunWise™" program aims to teach children K-8th grade and their caregivers how to protect themselves from overexposure to the sun.

Educators and school nurses can receive the free SunWise toolkit containing cross-curricular, age appropriate classroom materials to teach the science behind ultraviolet (UV) radiation and its health effects by registering here.

The SunWise™ program is “teacher friendly”, easy to use, FREE and includes information about policy, promoting sun-safe behaviors, letters for parents, etc. to involve the entire school community in skin cancer prevention.

The Skin Cancer Institute is an official partner with the NEEF Sunwise program. 

ARS 15-718 Skin Cancer Prevention Instruction in Arizona
Arizona is the first state to mandate the provision of instruction on preventing skin cancer in public schools. Arizona Education Policy ARS 15-718 requires that children in public schools, grades K-8, receive skin cancer prevention classroom activities offered by the SunWise™ program.

“Every single child in the state of Arizona is going to be exposed to the most deadly rays of the sun during the hours while they are in the responsibility of the school unless they know how to protect themselves,” said Sen. Barbara Leff, author of the bill that became ARS 15-718.

Empower Pack is a new opportunity offered to child care providers by the Arizona Department of Health Services. The program empowers children to make good choices about nutrition, physical activity, and tobacco using age-appropriate vehicles including costumed characters and a coloring book. In addition to reduced licensing fees, participating child care providers, or Empower Centers, receive an Empower Pack. The guidelines and tools included in this Empower Pack can be easily incorporated into the everyday routine of child care to instill healthy life choices. For more information, visit Arizona Department of Health Services.

 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Sun Safety for America's Youth Toolkit

https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/skin/index.htm

 

Other Resources  

Arizona Department of Health Services provides information and presentations on the SunWise™ School Program through its AZDHS SunWise Coordinator:

Sergio Perez
(602) 364-3851
sergio.perez@azdhs.gov
sunwise@azdhs.gov

The Skin Cancer Institute is able to provide a very limited number of presentations on skin cancer prevention and sun safety to interested groups throughout the year. Please email us at contactsci@uacc.arizona.edu with the name of your group, number of people expected and dates you have in mind.

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