What do Bone and Silly Putty® have in Common?: A Lesson on Bone Viscoelasticity

Without the use of real-life examples and models, actively instructing and engaging students in complex physiology topics related to bone biomechanics can be challenging. In our large-enrollment Human Physiology & Anatomy courses at the University of Connecticut, the skeletal system is the first organ system that we cover in depth, rendering even more important our establishment of (and emphasis on) how fascinating--and directly applicable to everyday life--the anatomical features and physiological properties of organs can be. Because our lecture courses are supplemented with 2 hours per week of anatomy-intensive laboratory investigations, we tend to focus heavily on physiology concepts during lecture. For the skeletal system, we consider stress-strain curves in the context of bone biomechanics, including the materials-science concepts of elasticity, plasticity, and viscoelasticity, and the more generalizable concepts of hysteresis and anisotropy. Hoping to provide a fun, entertaining, and real-world perspective on these topics, we used Silly Putty® as an inexpensive, familiar, and readily-available model of some of these bone properties. This lesson allows students to get engaged in, and familiarized with, biomechanical concepts through demonstration of this well-known play material's properties, as a concrete reference point. Coupling the lesson with active questioning and think-pair-share activities allows students to develop skills in data interpretation and to apply previously-acquired knowledge bases to a novel situation. In this lesson, we provide instructors with a template for re-creating this demonstration, which can be accompanied by active-learning strategies and resources that promote development of data-interpretation and problem-solving skills in students.

This article has an accompanying Science Behind the Lesson article: "A Short Bone Biomechanics Primer: Background for a Lesson on Bone Viscoelasticity."

在缺乏真实实例和模型的情况下，积极指导并激发学生对与骨生物力学相关的复杂生理学主题的兴趣是一项颇具挑战性的任务。在康涅狄格大学的我们大型招生规模的人类生理学与解剖学课程中，骨骼系统是我们首先深入研究的器官系统，这使得我们建立并强调器官的解剖特征和生理特性如何引人入胜——以及如何直接应用于日常生活——显得尤为重要。鉴于我们的讲座课程辅以每周两小时的解剖学密集型实验室研究，我们在讲座中往往会对生理学概念进行深入探讨。对于骨骼系统，我们将应力-应变曲线置于骨生物力学的背景下进行讨论，包括材料科学中的弹性、塑性和粘弹性等概念，以及更普遍适用的滞后性和各向异性等概念。为了提供一种有趣、引人入胜且贴近实际的视角，我们使用了Silly Putty®作为一种低廉、熟悉且易于获取的模型来模拟某些骨特性。本课程使学生能够通过展示这种广为人知的玩具材料的特性而参与其中，并将其作为具体的参考点。结合主动提问和思考-配对-分享等活动，学生可以培养数据解读能力，并将之前获得的知识库应用于新情境。在本课程中，我们为教师提供了一份重现此演示的模板，该模板可配合主动学习策略和资源，以促进学生数据解读和问题解决技能的发展。本文还附有“课程背后的科学：骨粘弹性课程背景简介”的相关文章。