This report summarizes the muscle and joint teaching modules (formly known as the "locomotion" hut) as proposed by Patrick Roisen, Summit's teacher in residence. There are a total of eight teaching modules (three of which are optional). Most activities can be done in a single day while others can be spread out over two or three days. Some teachers may wish to assign activities that don't involve the computer as homework or as group projects.

The following table lists the modules in the recommended order of completion:

Detailed descriptions about the design and implementation of these learning resources can be found in the Muscle Learning Activities page.

Below is an expanded description of the learning activities:

• Students fill out a worksheet about different muscle types (skeletal, cardiac, smooth) and decide which affects locomotion the most (this could be standard reading questions or a matrix). [ 1 day ]
• Students would learn the names/classifications of skeletal muscles by using a color coded diagram of frog muscles with the different muscle types (similarly for the human, if time permitted). They would decide which muscles on the frog would be changed to optimize its jumping performance. [ 1 day ]
• Students would perform a lab experiment whereby they would alter the composition of muscle fiber types in a muscle and see how that affects the muscles' performance in the following areas[ 1-2 days ]:
  1. strength
  2. reaction time
  3. endurance

  This would be accompanied by a workseet that guided them through the activity and then asked them what combinations would be ideal for (1) the jumping frog contest, (2) the frog's natural habitat, (3) for different types of atheletes, and for different areas of the body (e.g., back muscles versus the biceps).

  Some students may be interested in seeing the mathematical equations that comprise the muscle model to gain better understanding of their behavior and to be able to make predictions of their experimental outcomes.

• *Optional* Students would go deeper into muscles and learn about sarcomeres, then go to the lab area and find out about the relationship between the starting length of the muscle and the amount of force generated. This could be done using a static worksheet or by performing a lab experiment and acquiring data about force versus initial displacement which can then be turned into a graph. [ 1 day ]
• *Optional* Students would do a lever lab to determine relationships between length of bones and where the muscles attach with respect to the amount of force generated. The lab would demonstrated how mechanical advantage (i.e., the lever multiplication factor) is determined by the lenght of the effort arm divided by the resistance arm. This lab could be done by the teacher in class, or by students on the computer. The latter case would make it easier to simulate a series of interconnected levers (such as legs) and see how they affect distance of jump. [ 1-2 day ]
• *Optional* Students would research information (perhaps in the FrogIsland library) about how and why frogs jump. They would play the Jumping JavaFrog game to figure out why the best ballistic angle would be (this would require them to collect data about jump distance versus jump angle). Students would then complete a worksheet on their finds and include any nuances they may discover regarding why the predator bird attacks more frequently and flies diminish as the frog lives increase. [ 1 day ]
• Students would decide which muscles and bones to increase or descrease and present their results in a report stating their hypotheses. Alternatively, the results could be summarized in a poster presentation or incorporated into a HyperCard stack using images from the Frog Island resources. [ 1 day ]
• Students could evaluate their frog designs on the computer and have it simulate the jumping dynamics. This would allow students to test their designs and provide teachers with a means for evaluating their work. This would be tricky because the simulation would have to be fairly accurate in order not to give false or misleading impressions about their design decisions. Ideally, students would also take into account the aerodynamics of the frog's body, slipperiness, changes to the heart function, increasing the rate of red blood cell production, oxygen supply, etc. [ 1-2 days? ]