June 26, 2008

UV Beads Help Students Understand the Importance of Sunscreen

You might have seen t-shirts or special jewelry (beads) that changes color in sunlight. UV Beads look like ordinary white beads used to make a craft project, but embedded in the plastic is a special pigment that changes color when exposed to ultraviolet light. The color change takes place in just seconds - almost like magic. Mrs. Bratteli’s Third Grade Class from Aikin Elementary School in Paris, Texas, used the beads as a way to see if sunscreen lotion really blocks out harmful ultraviolet light from the sun. We did an experiment with your UV beads and sunscreen and the types were 10, 30, and 50 SPF. We put them each on a foam plate and had a nothing plate. [control—no sunscreen] They changed colors exactly how they were supposed to, but the 50 you couldn’t see. Read the full experiment write-up. But, like all good experiments, these third graders discovered something else... We left them all over the weekend and here are our results. The SPF 50 sunscreen also ate through the Styrofoam plate! The spf 10 … (more...)