EBI is a further education establishment which provides education in applied
industrial biology at level of MSc engineering degree. Fluid mechanics at EBI
was considered by students as difficult who seemed somewhat unmotivated. In
order to motivate them, we applied a new play-based pedagogy. Students were
asked to draw inspiration from everyday life situations to find applications of
fluid mechanics and to do experiments to verify and validate some theoretical
results obtained in course. In this paper, we present an innovative
teaching/learning pedagogy which includes the concept of learning through play
and its implications in fluid mechanics for engineering. Examples of atypical
experiments in fluid mechanics made by students are presented. Based on
teaching evaluation by students, it is possible to know how students feel the
course. The effectiveness of this approach to motivate students is presented
through an analysis of students' teaching assessment. Learning through play
proved a great success in fluid mechanics where course evaluations increased
substantially. Fluid mechanics has been progressively perceived as interesting,
useful, pleasant and easy to assimilate. It is shown that this pedagogy which
includes educational gaming presents benefits for students. These experiments
seem therefore to be a very effective tool for improving teaching/learning
activities in higher education
