THE CONCEPT OF ANALOGUE MODELLING IN GEOLOGY: AN APPROACH TO MOUNTAIN BUILDING Edite Bolacha 1 , Helena Moita de Deus 1 and Paulo Emanuel Fonseca 1,2 1 LabGExp- Laboratorio de Geologia Experimental, Centro de Geologia da Faculdade de Ciencias da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal. 2 Departamento de Geologia da Faculdade de Ciencias da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal. Abstract: Analogue modelling has been used, in geological research, since the XIX century. Today, both in scientific investigation and in teaching, it is viewed as an indispensable tool in the reconstruction of ongoing geological phenomena, as well as it is fundamental to infer geological processes that happened throughout Earth’s History. Considering that analogue modelling can be used as a teaching strategy, when teaching Geology or any other experimental science, it is relevant to define the concept and to reveal its applications and vantages. As it reconstructs and explains past phenomena through the establishment of cause-effect relations with today’s analogue phenomena, analogue modelling became an important methodology in the construction of geological knowledge. This line of thinking has been used, for long, by geologists and, when transferred to the classroom, it can deepen the understanding of Geology. In order to do so, teachers need to plan and test carefully these activities, which usually include other teaching strategies simultaneously. These activities promote student’s involvement in their learning, therefore developing multiple skills. The genesis of a mountain range has always been a central issue for Mankind, in general, and for Geologists, in particular. Therefore, as Geology Theories about this matter have evolved, so have evolved the modelling techniques and, consequently, the teachers should adjust these methodologies in the classroom. Here is presented a new didactic analogue model of (segments of) mountain building adapted from updated scientific models. It was applied in a Geology class with 12 th grade students. This preliminary study showed that analogue modelling helped them to reconstruct their mental models about a contextualized episode of regional Geology. Keywords: Analogue Modelling, Teaching of Geology, Experimental work, History and Epistemology of Geology, Mountain building. INTRODUCTION Materials and equipments used in analogue modelling have been evolving since the XIX century (Oreskes, 2007; Schellart, 2002; Ranalli, 2001). Today this methodology is commonly used in scientific research to simulate geological processes that occurred in well determined time and space units. This is done using dynamic models, built to scale, which allow to the manipulation of several variables, selected according to the object of the investigation ( e.g. Malavieille, 2010). Despite its limitations (Deus et al ., 2011), analogue modelling can easily be applied to the teaching of Geology (either formally or non-formally), because planning a didactic activity requires a certain measure of simplification of the geological phenomena, leading to less variables to control. Visualizing the evolution of the studied geological processes empowers this teaching strategy, making it easy to transfer the studied phenomena to the reality, past or present ( e.g. CNRS-GeoManips). In all cases, the teacher should be careful regarding the way knowledge is presented, making sure that the students fully understand the limitations of the