Engineering schools use circus acts to teach fluid mechanics
A new study shows that undergraduate engineering students grasp complex fluid dynamics concepts better when instructors integrate circus performance techniques into lessons. The finding suggests entertainment-based teaching methods could reshape how technical skills are developed, with implications for corporate training and STEM education models.
Originaltitel: Mixing fluid mechanics with circus: how the performing arts can enhance learning in an undergraduate engineering course
<p>Advances in numerical algorithms, improvement of computational power and progress in remote sensing have led to the development of global flood models (GFMs), which promise to be a useful tool for large-scale flood risk management. However, performance and reliability of GFMs, especially in data-scarce regions, is still uncertain, as they are difficult to validate. Here we aim at contributing to develop alternative, more flexible, and consistent methods for GFM validation by applying a change detection analysis on synthetic aperture radar (CD-SAR) imagery obtained from the Sentinel-1 imagery, on a cloud-based geospatial analysis platform. The study addresses two main objectives. First, to validate four widely adopted GFMs with flood maps generated through the proposed CD-SAR approach. This exercise was conducted for eight different large river basins on four continents, to account for a diverse range of hydro-climatic environments. Second, to compare CD-SAR-derived flood maps with those obtained from alternative remote sensing sources. These comparative results offer valuable insights into the reliability of CD-SAR data as a validation tool, more specifically how it stacks up against flood maps generated by other remote sensing techniques. </p>