Hey Ray! Why you should wear sunscreen in the shade

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- We are getting to the time of year where the Sun's angle continues to get higher in the sky and sunscreen becomes even more important.

Constant exposure to harmful UV Rays is not healthy for your skin and can become dangerous. Protecting that skin of yours is very important. There may be times when you think you're protected, though, but really aren't.

Like when you are near water.  If you are in the shade, you still need to take precautions to protect your skin.

Light energy from the Sun that makes it to the Earth's surface is either absorbed into things or reflected off things. Water is a very reflective surface. Those ultraviolet rays bounce off the water and can be absorbed by your skin, even if you are in the shade.

Here is an experiment to show how you can still basically cook yourself, even if you think you have it made in the shade. To do this experiment, we are going to use a toned-down burning laser, a thermal imaging camera to see the heat in action, a wet mirror and a non-reflective surface.   Our non-reflective surface is a black, plastic dish.

Since we are using a laser that is more powerful than your typical laser pointer, and some of that light is going to be reflected, we are going to take special care to protect our eyes with these glasses that are paired up to our laser color. This is also an experiment that should be only conducted under the supervision of a responsible adult.

When we shine our toned-down burning laser onto the dish, you can see that the thermal camera picks up on the heat. Meaning the laser's energy is essentially cooking that surface.

If we shine the laser onto the wet mirror, you can see some of the energy is scattered, and some of the energy is reflected onto our dish. Where that energy is reflected onto the dish, our thermal imaging camera is showing that heat is being absorbed.  The area of heat is a little bigger too, since the laser energy is being scattered to a larger area.   

If you haven't put two and two together yet, the laser represents the Sun, and the dish represents our skin.

This shows how the Sun can still burn you, even in the shade, if you don't take precautions.  Being in the shade is a great start, but make sure you are fully protected with sunscreen!