Bare Essentials of Soil Mechanics by John Burland – a brief review

Professor John Burland has developed a suite of five short videos (2 to 6 minutes) on the engineering behavior of soil. The emphasis is on the particulate nature of soils and its implications for soil strength. All videos are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License.

The videos can be used in a variety of ways in a course on Soil Mechanics/Geotechnical Engineering. One or two videos can be shown in class, ideally accompanied by a quiz question each. Alternatively, the instructor can ask the students to watch the videos in advance and then quiz students in class. Finally, the instructor can incorporate memorable visuals from the videos in PowerPoint presentations.