This study presents a practical developed for an undergraduate geotechnical engineering course. The practical was designed to reduce systematic issues so that students could focus on cognitive and conceptual issues rather than practical minutiae. Compression tests were carried out on dry halite, enabling consistent specimen densities to be achieved by different groups who then produced a composite compression curve for a given particle size range by piecewise loading to different maximum stresses. Using this approach, the compression test could be completed within a 1.75-h practical session, rather than over several days as is often the case for compression tests of clays. Data of sufficiently high precision were produced for students to link findings to research reported in the literature. Carrying out tests on halite also enabled students to re-engage with minerology concepts presented in geology courses from previous years. Student feedback suggested that the most challenging aspects of the assignment were handling the large data set, making sense of the literature, and writing a single-page report. These were all key learning outcomes anticipated for this activity.