Two local schools have won the Ugliest School Yard’ contest.
Both Owen Sound’s Notre Dame and Hanover’s Holy Family School will receive a thousand dollars each to purchase trees and shade structures for their playgrounds.
Public Health Nurse Karen Croker says the contest was more about sun safety than school yard beautification.
Croker says the new trees and shade structures will provide students with protection from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.
Croker says this is particularly important since children are at school during the highest risk period of the day for sun exposure between 11 AM and 4 PM.
She says during that time children spend about an hour and forty minutes outside.
Croker says the more a child is exposed to sunburns the higher the risk of developing skin cancer later in life.
Notre Dame and Holy Family School were 2 out of 25 schools across the Southwest Region to win the contest.
It’s all part of the Southwest Public Health Skin Cancer Prevention Networks Ugliest Schoolyard Contest.
The new trees and shade structures will be purchased in the Fall.
Along with shade, Croker reminds parents that sunscreen is another important line of defence against skin cancer.