CONGRESS FORMAT IN EDUCATION FOR LANDSCAPE AND CIVIL ENGINEERING

Civil engineering builds the territory. Although its activity is essentially related to the place and the landscape where it’s located, most of the subjects of the Grade and Master curricula are technical or mathematical courses abstracted from their relationship with the place.

Landscape is the ideal discipline for understanding public works in the physical and environmental setting, as well as for valuing the meaning, significance and socio-cultural relevance of the built environment.

Students use to solve mathematical problems with a single formulation and a single result, so the subject is a strong contrast. They discover that they can also participate in the formulation of the problem and that its resolution does not have to be unique. This does not imply that it is a subjective discipline; on the contrary, there are bibliography and methodology to deal with it. In our experience, the congress format has been very successful. The subject is not assessed by means of an examination, but rather through teamwork based in the study of a specific topic in a specific territorial area.

The works require the use of information sources for the study of public works and landscape -bibliography, collections, archives-, as well as analysis and representation tools -computer programs, applications and new technologies- (INTED2016: Collaborative and georeferenced systems in education for landscape and civil engineering) and the elaboration of an interpretative mapping of analysis and representation (INTED2018: Drawing Cartographies in education for landscape and civil engineering).

The congress format, through a written article for each team and its oral presentation, is ideal to work with all these elements. On one hand, each team must to write a paper that follows the format of a scientific article or a communication to a congress, with its corresponding elements: title, abstract, key words, illustrations, quotations, bibliographical references; on the other hand, they finish with an oral presentation and defence of the work in class, with a determined time of exposure and supported by visual or multimedia media, followed by questions from teachers and students. Each year, a common subject is chosen to take advantage of synergies and make group dynamics more productive. The entire process is guided by shared classroom tutoring and students are also involved in peer review.