Not a decision to give up caffeine until the festive season but a remark by my Italian research student as he finished his cup of coffee on the flight back to England. He doesn’t consider what we serve in the UK to be coffee and he won’t be back in Italy until the Christmas vacation. We were in Italy visiting the laboratory with which we are collaborating on his research project. He is right, the coffee gets much better as you move south and east from the US and UK.
Next time you are enjoying a cup of coffee watch the swirls created as you or a friend stirs in some cream. You can see streak lines that show the path of the cream in the coffee and reveal the fluid flow in your cup. It is even better if you have a clear glass. You can use this as an Everyday Engineering Example to capture students’ attention and to illustrate the kinematics of fluids as in the 5E lesson plan below.
Realize Engineering 