Geotechnical engineering

Geotechnical engineering is like playing with clay or sand. Remember building sand castles at the beach or molding shapes out of Play-Doh? Geotechnical engineers use their knowledge to play with soil, rocks and other things in the ground, and figure out how strong they are, how they move or how they behave under different conditions.

Just like you need to know how much water to add to make the perfect sand castle or how much pressure to apply to your Play-Doh shapes to keep them from falling apart, geotechnical engineers study these materials to understand how they'll react to things like buildings, bridges, or tunnels being built on top of or near them.

They might also look at different ways of building foundations deep in the soil or preventing buildings from sinking if the soil is too soft. Think of geotechnical engineers as smart people who make sure that the things we build don't fall down or break easily.