Slip, slap, slop is what all the kids are doing these days, and the goal is to look super cool. ?Slip, Slap, Slop, Wrap and Pack? is the slogan for this year?s TB Cancer & Health Sunsmart Campaign, which is targeting more than 2,600 students on the Island.

?We tell them it is smart to slip on a hat, it is cool to slap and slop on sun block on, and that you should cover up as much as possible and you should wrap on some shades to protect eyes, and you should pack water,? said Rachael Andrade, education officer at TB Cancer & Health.

Mrs. Andrade will be giving presentations at every school on the island. Thanks to the support of Allied Insurance, many school children will be receiving special sun hats to wear when they are at the beach.

To help get the message across to a younger audience, Mrs. Andrade uses a stuffed Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil toy and a fuzzy bear called Sunny.

?The Tasmanian Devil sits in his chair with his shades and umbrella,? said Mrs. Andrade. ?He has on his hat and a shirt. He does all the right things. Then his friend is a big fat, fuzzy bear called Sunny. He doesn?t do anything he is supposed to. They call him the ?ouch bear?. He gets sunburn on his nose, tail and his ears.?

Mrs. Andrade said the stuffed toys help to visually reinforce the message since kids are not really interested in statistics about skin cancer, or medical lectures.

?This is an expanded edition of last year?s campaign,? said TB Cancer & Health spokeswoman Pauline Girling. ?We started it because we needed to get the message out to the school children prior to them breaking for summer holidays.?

As part of their Sunsmart campaign, TB Cancer & Health will also be giving several hour-long workshops to camp counsellors and camp leaders, to make sure they know how to keep their campers safe in the sun, not just from sun burn, but also from dehydration and heat exhaustion.

?If our message of being smart in the sun is reinforced by the summer camp counsellors, hopefully, it will get through and it will become habit rather than a chore.

? Those kids will pass it on to their friends, and hopefully, when they grow up, they will pass their good habits on to their children.?

According to the American Cancer Association severe childhood sunburns can increase the risk for skin cancer later in life.

Most nonmelanoma skin cancers develop on sun-exposed areas of the body, like the face, ear, neck, lips, and the backs of the hands. Depending on the type, they can be fast or slow growing, but they rarely spread to other parts of the body. Melanoma is a cancer that begins in the melanocytes ? the cells that produce the skin colouring or pigment known as melanin. Melanin helps protect the deeper layers of the skin from the harmful effects of the sun.

?The workshop equips the counsellors with the skills and knowledge to protect their kids,? said Mrs. Girling. ?Through the summer we will drop in and see how they are doing. At the end of the year we will award a Sunsmart award to the camp that demonstrates the most responsible effort in keeping their kids safe. Last year the Dinghy Club won it. They integrated some games into their every day activities. They also made up a song, ?Slap on your sunscreen?. It was all part and parcel of their daily routine.?

Mrs. Andrade said one of the important things to remember about sunblock, is that it must be regularly reapplied, even if the label says sweatproof or waterproof.

?If you draw your hand across your face then you have effectively removed your protection,? she said. ?You still have to reapply it. If it is SPF 30, that means you have to reapply every 300 minutes. It is the SPF times ten. The child is not going to remember to stop regularly to reapply sunscreen so it is really the responsibility of their caregivers to remember.?

She recommended an SPF value of 30 for small children, and she said that even if you have dark skin, you still need sunscreen.

?I?m olive coloured,? said Mrs. Andrade. ?Ten minutes in the sun and my skins starts to change. The myth is the darker you are the less you have to worry about it. That is just not true. You ask any local Bermudian to take off their watch during the summer, and you will see that their skin has changed.?

She said that the good news is that sunscreen has improved in recent years, and no longer leaves a green film on darker skin.

?There is no such thing as a healthy tan,? said Mrs. Andrade. ?It takes your skin about ten minutes to start reacting to the sun. When your skin changes colour, it is trying to repair itself from the damage from ultraviolet rays, not so you can look good. It is a protective mechanism. You should put your sunscreen on before you leave the house, not wait until you get to the beach to do it.

?It can be costly to use a lot of sunblock, but you have to weigh the costs. Would you rather have to pay the cost of a bottle of sunblock, or the cost of getting treatment for an early diagnosis of nonmelanoma skin cancer, and all that that entails??

She said with all the environmental changes going on, including the depletion of the ozone layer it is becoming more and more important for people to protect their skin from sun damage.

?We must protect these children, because our dermatologists are seeing younger and younger clients who have changes in moles, or changes in skin,? Mrs. Andrade said. In addition to teaching kids how to protect themselves from the sun, local health advocates are also worried about the amount of water kids drink during the day, particularly in the summer months.

?Marie Beach, Government healthy schools co-ordinator is doing a major campaign to encourage teachers to get their students to drink water,? said Mrs. Andrade.

?Water hydrates better than soda. When you are thirsty you are not dehydrating you already are already dehydrated.?