Geotechnical education at Bachelor level usually commences with a simplified theoretical introduction into soil mechanics, which may be supported later during the course by hands-on laboratory experiments to cover classification of soils and provide the evidence for the elementary mechanical behaviour of soils. The application of such a curriculum to practice is challenging because the students are not confronted with practical reality where limited information is available to develop a model of the ground. An exercise on site investigation has been developed and incorporated into the ETH Zurich soil mechanics course to help to bridge this gap based on an initial development for undergraduate education in soil mechanics at the University of Sheffield.

This exercise, focusing on the three aspects of practical site investigation, creation of a soil model and decision making for best soil condition for a foundation will be introduced and described here. It has been compulsory for the Bachelor students in their first geotechnical course during the first three years after its development. After gaining more experience with the exercise, and under the pressure of growing numbers of students, it has been changed from being compulsory for all students to one of the challenges, from which the students have to select and pass 4 out of 6. Regular evaluation by the students shows that the students appreciate this practical experience and are surprised how little information is often available for practical design tasks.