How to Make Sun Prints using Sunscreen

"You need sunscreen."

"Why?"

"To keep you from getting a sunburn."

"Why?"

Sound familiar? We are all about the why here in this house. Sunscreen is just the most recent one.

So I put together this science experiment/ art project to show the kids what sunscreen does.

Supplies for Sunscreen Sun Prints

Construction Paper
Sunscreen
Various objects to hold paper down in case of wind.

How to Make Sun Prints with Sunscreen

I started by having the kids paint pictures on construction paper with sunscreen. The only requirement I gave them was that they could not fill the entire page since or there would be nothing to see!

Next we laid them out in the sun.

Thanks to the wind we got to experiment with classic sun printing; basically we had to block some of the paper with things to weigh them down!

After letting the dry in the sun a few hours this is what we got. You can see the sun screen kept the area under it darker, but the actually color still faded.

The areas where we completely blocked the sun with objects stayed their same bright color! Obviously cover is better protection then sunscreen, but sunscreen is still better then nothing!