The number of girls and women taking part in sports has exploded over the last ten to 20 years and so has the number of sports injuries. That will be the toppic of a symposium this Saturday in Des Moines. Sponsored by Iowa Health the symposium will focus on the injuries and other health issues relative to female athletes.Rich Green is a physical therapist with Iowa Health and says one of the topics of discussion will be the high number of knee injuries suffered by female athletes. He says there are a lot of theories on why the injuries occur and they want to look at the things that are different from male athletes. He says the number of A-C-L injuries has become so large that the National Institute of Health has been give a multi-million dollar grant to study why. He says a recent study showed women injure their A-C-L at a rate nine times higher than males. He says there are all different types of theories as to why, such as hip size and the way women jump compared to males. Green says A-C-L injuries have been a big problem for female basketball players. Green says event is targeted toward coaches of atheletes 11 or older as well as athletic directors and athletic trainers.The symposium begins at 8:30 Saturday morning at the Des Moines Botanical Center.