The objective of the work was to evaluate the development of variational thinking after the application of a didactic strategy based on mathematical modeling, in civil engineering students from the Province of Abancay, in Peru. The sample was 111 students who worked in two experimental groups and in a control group. The evaluation of the development of variational thinking was carried out according to covariational reasoning. The results show that the application of the strategy allowed the development of variational thinking because it significantly improved the level of covariational reasoning, allowing students to develop and strengthen skills to coordinate the amount of change in the variables.