Abstract:

So many times academic works, research findings or professional issues are far from knowledge of general society. Non-technician people find difficulties in accessing to the work developed by lecturers and researchers in Universities or Research Institutes. Moreover, these professionals have a very few chances of connecting to the general society, as for instance the case of civil engineers. For mitigating this situation, most Universities are carrying out a great effort to bridge the academic environments and the population.

This paper describes a singular activity developed in the Department of Construction of the University of Extremadura (Spain), in particular by the Civil Engineering degree, under the auspice of the European Researchers’ Night program. This framework is designed for allowing any person, both with and without specific or technical knowledge, come into contact with the scientific university environment.

The main goal is the explanation of the design of some civil engineering constructions and how they are affected by its interaction with water. For that purpose, several physical scale models were built. On the one hand, different models of earth dams were developed and checked under different seepage conditions using different types of drains. On the other hand, the risks associated to water in slopes stability were also analyzed.

The activity was followed by a great amount of participants, especially children and youth, divided in small group of 10-15 people by session. They were really interested in the activity, asking persistently along the whole session and showing an active participation. Their comments and suggestions have been really useful for organizers, to improve this activity in following editions according to people’s curiosities.

Keywords:

Civil Engineering, Science popularization, physical scale models.