Three DECivil professors visited the Escola Secundária da Amadora of the Agrupamento de Escolas Pioneiros da Aviação Portuguesa on February 15th in order to participate in the “Experimental Science Days”, which involves a set of initiatives in the areas of Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Geology.

Professors António Pinheiro, Luís Guerreiro and Carlos Tiago presented various aspects of civil engineering to an audience of 140 students, answering questions such as “What do civil engineers do?” and pointing out the future challenges that today's society faces, such as population growth, resilience to natural disasters, adaptation to climate change and the sustainability of the built environment.

Professor Luís Guerreiro then demonstrated the effects caused in reduced models of two buildings by a history of accelerations at their base. To do this, he used a portable seismic table.

The visit ended with an intervention by Professor António Pinheiro on the impact of the construction of the Alqueva Dam throughout Alentejo, covering technical, economic and societal aspects.

This visit is part of a sequence of actions to publicize Civil Engineering at secondary schools, having been preceded by visits to DECivil by students from Colégio Valsassina on February 8th and Escola Secundária de Caneças on February 9th. In these, students had the opportunity to visit several laboratories.

DECivil would like to thank Professor Elisabete Alves for the opportunity it had to visit Escola Secundária da Amadora, with whom all the details of the visit were organized.