Track 22

Track 22

Dave: So Abi, can Helen and I show you our presentation to see if you think it’s okay?

Abi: Of course, no problem.

Helen: Thanks a lot. Okay first of all, we’re going to show the explorers’ route on the map here and explain what happened on the expedition by highlighting some key events.

Abi: Right.

Helen: And we think it’s important to mention that the expedition started quite badly. You see the original base camp had to be moved. The original plan was to start from the tree line at the bottom of the mountain but the explorers couldn’t set up camp there because of the rain so they moved higher up.

Dave: The idea is to highlight the importance of planning in exploratory expeditions. The Robertson team should have known that they couldn’t have started from the tree line in the rainy season.

Abi: Yes, they really should have checked that!

Dave: In the end the camp was set up on the edge of the snow line. Okay, so moving on, Joan Robertson and her team found several new plant species on the lower slopes of the peak and when they were halfway up the mountain they came across some fossils which they worked out were from dinosaurs.

Abi: How did they know the fossils were from dinosaurs? Surely they couldn’t have identified them so easily whilst on the expedition?

Helen: But that’s the important point. This team were not just explorers but also scientists. In order to make the trip more useful, they took scientific equipment to analyse anything they found so they were able to identify the dinosaur fossils correctly.

Abi: It’s good to make this clear if your project is supposed to be about the importance of scientific expeditions rather than exploratory ones.

Dave: Absolutely.

Abi: So am I right to think that the Robertson expedition took longer as a result of the research?

Dave: Well, they should have taken longer because they were conducting a lot of experiments but modern technology enabled them to do the experiments and reach the summit in under four weeks. In fact they arrived at the top on day 26 of the trip.