RIVER HILLS — Maybe you'd think creating your own environmentally friendly sunscreen would be difficult. Well, some 8th graders found out it's pretty simple.
"I would probably say that it's actually surprisingly easy to make a sunscreen. All you need to do is just find the right ingredients, and the right amount of ingredients, and the instructions to actually make it," Benjamin Raphael, an 8th grader at University School of Milwaukee, said.
In fact, they bought all the ingredients online.
"I believe most of these are actually from Amazon," Sophie Kouklin, an 8th grader at the University School of Milwaukee, said.
Raphael and Kouklin were part of the four-person team that helped develop the sunscreen. The other members are Samuel Yuan and Viraj Kamath.
They wanted to make an ocean-friendly sunscreen that wouldn’t leak toxic chemicals into the water. They consulted with dermatologists about the right ingredients, determined the amounts, and then mixed them all together. The ingredients include essential oils, zinc oxide, natural butters, and plant-based gels. They are calling their sunscreen Oceanguard.
"This felt amazing. I was very very happy that we found a sunscreen that actually works, and that one could use if they want to make sure the ocean is like sustainable. And so people can actually explore it without having to risk harming mammals and coral," Samuel Yuan, one of the team members who helped create the sunscreen, said.
They tested it against three other store-brand sunscreens: Coppertone, Babyganics, and Trader Joe's sunscreen. They put it on plant leaves to see which blocked the sun the most efficiently. Theirs was the best at blocking the sun and causing the plants to wilt. (The sunscreen stopped the leaves from absorbing sunlight thus causing the leaves to wilt.) The team also tested the sunscreen on special UV paper. Theirs performed 2nd best.
“We’ve tested our sunscreen on humans, and we’ve tested it on us, ourselves. Unfortunately, we can’t test it on students because that’s against the school’s policy," Yuan said.
Yuan helped come up with the idea for a more ocean-friendly sunscreen after reading about the problems sunscreen causes to coral reefs and ocean animals. Finding and using good sunscreen is something Yuan knows about well.
"So I have albinism which is a genetic skin disorder and basically that makes skin significantly paler than it should be. I'm biologically half Chinese but because of my albinism I've got significantly less melanin," Yuan said.
So he uses sunscreen a lot. Yuan believes Oceanguard is better than other options on the market right now.
"Oh definitely, yea, I would love to use this sunscreen if I had the chance," he said.
This endeavor to create an environmentally-friendly sunscreen was in conjunction with their requirements for the FIRST LEGO League. It's an international robotics competition for middle schools. Teams must design and build a LEGO robot and have it perform certain tasks. One of the requirements outside of the robotics portion is that teams must take on an innovation project. Oceanguard was this team's project.
Going forward, the team of eighth-grade scientists wants to take their creation out of the classroom. They are working with a local law firm to patent their product.
“We hope it goes to the market and that we’re able to mass-distribute this amazing product so everyone can help the ocean. I mean, you don’t have to work for a giant company to help the ocean; you can just wear the sunscreen, and you’re already helping the ocean. It’s that simple," Kouklin said.
Give it a year or two. Maybe you’ll see Oceanguard on store shelves.
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