A couple of days ago I shared 22 lessons that have been inspired by my daughters’ questions. Here’s another one that popped-up yesterday, “why do we have to wear sunscreen?” It’s the question both of my daughters asked when I told them they had to wear sunscreen to play outside yesterday afternoon. 

The answer of “because I don’t want you to get sunburned” didn’t pass muster with them. They wanted to know why they would get sunburned if they didn’t wear sunscreen. The short answer, they have very fair skin and blonde hair. And after a long winter of spring of wearing long sleeves their skin will burn easily. 

The discussion about sunscreen reminded me of this old TED-Ed lesson about how sunscreen works and why we should wear it. 

Applications for Education

As any parent of young children will tell you, putting sunscreen on a child who doesn’t want to wear it is about as much fun and about as difficult as bathing a cat or putting toothpaste back into the tube. Watching this video probably won’t convince children that are my daughters’ ages (five and six) to wear sunscreen, but it could be a good lesson for middle school and high school health classes.