Education and practice: The Peruvian experience

This paper describes the Peruvian experience which proposed a change in the curricula of the career of Civil Engineering at the Ricardo Palma University from Lima, Peru. With a more special focus on the teaching-learning of Geotechnical Engineering by the development of field survey workshops and seminars with the students of Engineering Foundations and Geotechnical Design. The experience focused in the Geotechnical Design and effective field practice, workgroups development, organizational maintenance and oral and written communication skills as well as in the application of the Geotechnical Engineering in the seismic prevention and geotechnical risk. This experience was carried out on the popular human settlements of Metropolitan Lima, where the effects of an earthquake with Magnitude 8.7 (Mw) or higher, would originate a very considerable amount of human and economical losses. This paper summarizes some important surveys accomplished by the students, which show precarious foundations due to poor technical and professional knowledge on loose granular soils, non compacted landfills and soft geotechnical materials. Finally, this paper discusses the on-going research about these precarious foundations on loose materials made of original rocks from the site, called “pircas”.