SunSmart America™ Curriculum

SunSmart America™ Curriculumn

The Richard David Kann Melanoma Foundation is especially proud of it’s sun safety curriculum SunSmart America™. SunSmart America™ offers age appropriate classroom modules providing knowledge and skills for attitudinal changes to avoid and understand the life threatening issues of over exposure to the sun. This curriculum is available for K-5, Middle School and High School.

In 2002, the Foundation, in collaboration with the University of Miami, received a grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health for a 5-year longitudinal study to quantify the success of the SunSmart America™ Elementary School Curriculum. As part of this grant, the Foundation worked closely with students and teachers of twenty schools throughout Palm Beach County.

This study concluded that the knowledge and attitudes relating to skin cancer among elementary school students who participated in a skin cancer education curriculum for a three year period significantly increased. Therefore, providing emirical support for the need of a school-based sun safety educational intervention. However, the students behavior as it relates to sun safety only increased slightly. As a result, these students would benefit from further interventions.