Fabric & UV Light

1. Fabric & UV Light Venture Academy Physical Science Class 2003 - 2004

2. Introduction • UV light and UV protection • Different types of fabric • Experiment • Results • Significance of results

3. UV Light • Have you ever wondered why you get sunburn from tanning, or why when you get older you age faster? This is all caused by UV radiation. UV radiation is a light that comes from the sun, which can cause skin cancer. The human eye can not see UV radiation, but UV radiation can cause eye damage such as cataracts, which is why you should never look directly at the sun. • There are various ways you can protect yourself from the sun’s harmful radiation. •Avoid going outside in the middle of the day when the sun is higher in the sky. •If you go outside stay in shady areas. •Wear clothing that covers your arms and your legs; wear a hat to cover your face and the back of your neck.

4. UV Light Continued •Always wear sunglasses when you step outside. •Apply sunscreen to every part of your body that gets exposed to the sun. Repeat every 2hrs. •UV beads are beads that are sensitive to UV light and UV radiation. They change color every time they are exposed to UV light. Regular household lights have no affect on the UV beads because of their non-UV rays. We used UV beads to detect where UV rays are and how strong they are.. •Some fabrics can protect you from UV radiation. To test which fabrics are most effective we used the UV beads and tested them with a black light.

5. What Problem Are We Trying To Solve? • The purpose of our experiments was to find out which type of fabric has the protection factor against UV light. • The way we were going to test this experiment was by putting our different fabrics over UV beads and then putting the fabric under a black light for thirty seconds. • Our prediction was that cotton and linen were the fabrics that were going to protect the best.

6. Methods • This experiment was conducted in a classroom over a period of 3 to 4 days. A set of UV beads were placed inside of the test fabrics. Two more sets of beads were placed on both sides of the fabric. One set of beads were covered by a 3” x 5” index card, the others were not covered at all. These two sets of beads were used as control beads. The control beads were used to gauge whether a change occurred. Then the UV light was applied for 30 seconds.

7. Results • The chart ranges from 6 which means no protection to 0 which means full protection.

8. Conclusions • In this experiment we learned that in the presence of UV light, some fabrics protect better than others.  The fabrics that protected the best were linen and a rayon/polyester blend, so in going outdoors when it is sunny and hot, you should probably wear some of these types of fabrics.  I think that we could have controlled more of the factors than we did.   Where we should go next with this experiment is to see if fabric color will help protect your skin from UV light.

9. Acknowledgements Special Thank To: Z. Alfred E. Cerri M. Cerri C. DeLao J. DeLao C. Estrada B. Henderson J. Mather R. Prigmore E. Rubienes M. Ryan N. Van de Star J. Williams Also a Very special thanks to the UOP team for the black light