Each Teacher Guide includes:

• Lesson Plans
• Paperback copy of the storybook Erik's Unexpected Twist
• Teacher Background Information
• Assessment Tools
• English Language Learner suggestions

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In this unit, students are introduced to Erik, a boy from Germany who is dreading an upcoming trip with his camping club. Whenever Erik goes camping, disaster seems to follow. During a scavenger hunt, one of the other campers, Matthias, injures his knee. Erik is able to use knowledge he gained from his mother, a biomedical engineer, and pull from his personal experience with a torn ligament in his knee, to help design a knee brace for Matthias.

Students will think like biomedical engineers as they learn about differences in arch height of people’s feet, and make recommendations to a fictional sneaker company about how many different types of sneakers they should create. Students will then measure the range of motion of healthy knees, and the range of motion of a model injured knee. After exploring the properties of materials available to them, students are asked to design a knee brace for the model injured knee that helps to restore its normal range of motion.

• FOSS Connections: Human Body
• STC Connections: Human Body Systems
• Insights Connection: Bones and Skeletons
• Science Companion: Human Body in Motion