The paper deals with teaching structural concepts as a first course in undergraduate structural engineering. The course is an attempt to initiate and introduce spatial thinking and to prepare a student to visualise and create by means of physical modelling, graphical modelling and simplified analytical or computer modelling of structural systems in 3D space and their components. The paper includes the desired objectives, the attempted approach, details of the content, some experiences of teaching such a course and a few suggestions for improvement.
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