The Saga of the Dance School: Digital Storytelling in a Fluid Mechanics Classroom

Education in engineering has invited a wide variety of pedagogical approaches ranging from classroom demonstrations, computational simulations, Excel-VBA tools, project-based learning, flipped classroom to even Japanese Anime. However, there are hardly any reports on the integration of digital storytelling in engineering education. The current paper examines the efficacy of the digital storytelling methodology in engineering education. A digital story for a Fluid Mechanics classroom on the specific concept of Reynolds number, a dimensionless parameter often utilized in Fluid Mechanics, is thoughtfully conceived, developed, implemented for second-year engineering students, and evaluated based on student feedback. The statistical data taken from the anonymous student surveys clearly attest to the overwhelming benefits of digital storytelling approach as a very useful pedagogical tool in engineering education. The paper reports how a seemingly mundane story, crafted using ingenious storyline and vivid imagery, can successfully implant vital and crucial Fluid Mechanics concepts in the minds of students, which are difficult to comprehend theoretically. Further, it has been found that bringing down an abstract concept to the mundane realm empowers learners to visualize fluid motion as a tangible reality, and deduce rational insights into the behaviour of fluid flow. When utilized under the guided sphere of digital storytelling, such a pedagogical approach clearly stands out on many fronts as a very efficacious way of facilitating learning and making classroom environment fun, interesting, and full of suspense: elements that evoke the attention span of students.