The intention of the university education is to provide professionals with the analytical capacity to respond to the problems faced by society in each discipline. In Civil Engineering, one of the challenges is the understanding of soil behavior, which implies the learning of different concepts that require specific competences. This article presents pedagogical strategies based on the reflection regarding mobility of contaminants, issues that could be useful to an engineer. The methodological structure of each strategy includes a common attitudinal objective, specific objective, resources, composition of the work team, time and description of the strategy based on critical thinking, social commitment, problem solving and oral communication. It is concluded that this pedagogical design can be implemented in other topics because it facilitates the transfer of knowledge, and that the evaluation of the knowledge appropriation by the students continues pending.