Pre-Service Teachers, Co-Creating Sun Safety Education for Adolescents

In Australia, where high temperatures, excessive ultraviolet (UV) radiation and an outdoors lifestyle is commonplace, adherence to sun protection by adolescents is poor. As a group of sun-seekers, adolescents have the highest incidences of sunburns and repeat sunburns. This health-compromising behaviour occurs despite the knowledge that simple preventive actions reduce harm. It occurs irrespective of school-based programmes like SunSmart, the availability of public health interventions that target youths and the advertising of the UV Index across the media. This paper reports on a study that investigated the ability of pre-service teachers (PsTs) of health education to translate sun safe knowledge gathered from freely available sources into lesson planning. The research sample for the study comprised 48 PsTs of secondary schooling. Discussion of the data reflects on the professional standards for teachers to provide insight for content inclusions in curriculum planning aimed to increase adolescent awareness about sun protection.