Fluids in Equilibrium and Hydrodynamics

Abstract

Teaching fluid mechanics applied to undergraduate and graduate students of STEM disciplines has traditionally been a difficult task for the teacher. It connects to the use of more or less complex mathematics, computer science, and numerical methods. In this chapter, after a brief discussion about the development of pedagogical approaches to introduce students to fluid mechanics from 1950 to today, we discuss some relevant examples of Physics Education Research (PER) literature pieces related to teaching and learning specific aspects of fluid mechanics. The aim is to understand how PER has contributed to our current knowledge in that field, how it has evolved in terms of methodologies used, methods of validation of teaching/learning sequences (TLSs) and pedagogical tools proposed, analysis of student conceptions, learning in this subject, etc. Mainly, we discuss examples from the PER literature focused on i. Common student ideas on basic concepts of fluid mechanics; ii. Mathematical tools to resolve essential problems in fluid mechanics and facilitate the learning of the related concepts; iii. Computational tools for fluid mechanics; iv. Novel and creative ways of introducing fluid mechanics to students; v. Understanding surface phenomena.