What is Project SunSmart Georgia?

	Project SunSmart Volunteers

Project SunSmart Georgia is a sun protection education program developed at Emory’s Department of Dermatology in order to teach medical students about skin cancer and sun protection. As our future teachers and leaders, medical students have the potential to make a significant contribution towards educating the public regarding proper sun protection, thus curtailing the current skin cancer epidemic. We developed an effective, fun, and interactive method by which medical students learn as they teach elementary school children how to be sun safe through interactive presentations. Project SunSmart is based on two pedagogical theories, Theory Practice Learning and Service Learning, which advocate learning by practicing newly learned concepts in the community.

	Project SunSmart Volunteers

During Project SunSmart Georgia, the medical students learn about the skin cancer problem and how to reduce the risk with sun safe behaviors. The elementary school children learn how to be safe in the sun in a fun and memorable way and are exposed to medical students as role models. Since 2002, the inaugural year of the program, 35- 40 medical students have participated each year. We hope to expand this program to eventually involve every second year medical student at Emory University. Additionally, we believe this project could be expanded nationally to involve all medical schools.