Geo-engineering Education in Civil Engineering Courses: Successful Strategies in ISEP (Porto, Portugal)

This article intends to present the advantages of including activities of a practical nature, in curricular units of Soil Mechanics and Rock Mechanics, both in undergraduate and master’s degrees in Civil Engineering, or in the development of master’s theses. The creation of a reduced scale physical model of a reinforced soil structure with tires is presented. The didactic aspects of the development of a work within the service carried by ISEP’s Construction Studies Center (NEC) are also described. In addition, a coastal geotechnical study, developed by an undergraduate Civil Engineering student in ERASMUS mobility, is reported. The examples described involved several students and the results achieved, evidenced by the permanent interest they showed throughout the development of their studies and the excellent marks they obtained in their final evaluations, attest to the effectiveness of this teaching strategy with a strong practical component.