The study of Engineering when combined theory with practice provides the student with a great effectiveness in understanding the content studied by the same. When faced with the difficulty of understanding the content taught in the classroom, the students end up becoming discouraged, and thus their good training is compromised, generating an incomplete professional. Based on this deficiency, a small scale didactic model was developed for a rockfill dam, allowing an improvement in the learning presented in the classroom. Didactic models allow for experimentation, which in turn leads students to relate theory, laws and principles, and practice, experimental work. The prototype developed within a glass aquarium demonstrates the layers of landfill with different materials, the use of geosynthetics, in addition to allowing the visualization of the flow network. This device explains phenomena related to the geotechnical disciplines and promote a better quality in the teaching of Civil Engineering in the Universities and Institutions of Brazil. The device was submitted to the phenomena of overtopping, which occurs when the volume of water in the amount of the dam is such that the spillway can not drain it downstream, and with this the water overload in the dam ends up overflowing thus leaving it unstable and consequently occurs the slide leading the dam to collapse. The use of this didactic resource was satisfactory, with a significant improvement of students’ knowledge regarding the operation of earth dams, and with the experiment carried out, it was proved how important is the study and the good execution of the project always aiming to avoid all the types of catastrophes.