Glenna's Gift

This educational video was designed and developed to provide a peer-to-peer health lesson targeted at high school students. It provides a unique approach to raising awareness and changing behaviors regarding the dangerous practice of indoor tanning. Studies show that indoor tanning for any period of time and at any age may increase the likelihood of developing melanoma by 74%. The Youth Health Risk Behavior questionnaire (2011) showed that indoor tanning device use in Non-Hispanic White females was 14% among freshman and 44 % among seniors. Adolescent females report the use of indoor tanning devices three times more often than adolescent males. In 2009, 7% of all cancers diagnosed in females, between the ages of 15 to 19 years old, were melanoma. Females between the ages of 15-19 had twice the incidence of melanoma as compared to boys in this same age group. Although melanoma is more common in young females, it is more deadly in men. “Glenna's Gift” is based on interviews with Glenna Kohl who succumbed to melanoma at the age of 26. Glenna shares her personal struggle with a tanning addiction and melanoma. The video features actual high school students viewing and responding to the interviews. Their comments as they vacillated between empathy and denial provide a discussion starter for classroom programs. Additional segments include a dermatologist teaching the “ABCDE's of Melanoma” detection to a student, as well as a college student describing safe alternatives to indoor tanning.  The video was developed with the help of over 1,000 students over a 2 year period via in-school viewing and formal and informal evaluations. Students highly valued the “reality TV” format because it was “familiar yet factual.”

The video is available for viewing on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNgPlW1VecI

Closed captioning would be available for the Film Festival.