Context: This presentation is to accompany the Fantastic Places Scheme Of Learning as developed by the Royal Geographical Society. This particular resource is also found on this website:http://year7geo.com/ It is partly comprised of other people’s images which I have credited.In the same spirit of sharing as those whose work I’ve borrowed, this presentation by James Penstone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

1. A day at the
Racetrack
Image: Some rights reserved by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

2. Image: Some rights reserved by NASA Goddard Photo and Video
A day at the
Racetrack
Why do you
think rocks
like this
move?

3. Source: https://maps.google.com

4. Source: https://maps.google.com
The moving
rocks are found
in a place in
Death Valley
National Park.

5. Source: https://maps.google.com
The moving
rocks are found
in a place in
Death Valley
National Park.
Why is this area called Death Valley?

6. Source: https://maps.google.com
They are found
in a place
called
Racetrack
Playa inside of
Death Valley
National Park.

7. Source: https://maps.google.com
They are found
in a place
called
Racetrack
Playa inside of
Death Valley
National Park.
Why is this area called Racetrack Playa?
Image: Some rights
reserved by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

8. Image: Some rights reserved by NASA Goddard Photo and Video
Why is this area called Racetrack Playa?

9. Source: https://maps.google.com
Using Google
Maps or Google
Earth, locate
Racetrack
Playa

10. Source: https://maps.google.com
Describe the
location of
Racetrack
Playa

11. The ‘sailing
stones’ have
intrigued
Geographers
for a long time.
Image: Some rights reserved by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

12. Image: Some rights reserved by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

13. Image: Some rights reserved by NASA Goddard Photo and Video
There has to be an
explanation for this
strange movement
of rocks …

14. Image: Some rights reserved by NASA Goddard Photo and Video
Your mission is to solve the
‘mystery’ of the moving rocks.

15. Image: Some rights reserved by NASA Goddard Photo and Video
In a group of three or four,
sort the cards (shown on the
following slides) …
Your mission is to solve the
‘mystery’ of the moving rocks.

16. Source: rgs.org website on Fantastic Places – A Day at the Racetrack

17. Source: rgs.org website on Fantastic Places – A Day at the Racetrack

18. Source: rgs.org website on Fantastic Places – A Day at the Racetrack

19. Source: rgs.org website on Fantastic Places – A Day at the Racetrack

20. Image: Some rights reserved by stevelyon
You should sort the cards into
three main types …

21. Image: Some rights reserved by stevelyon
You should sort the cards into
three main types …
• Background information on Death Valley
• Not useful in answering the question
• Helps answer the question

22. Image: Some rights reserved by NASA Goddard Photo and Video
Each group should prepare an
explanation on a poster to answer
the main question, which will then
be explained to the rest of the class.

23. Image: Some rights reserved by kugelfish
The class will
give feedback
on each
explanation,
and will vote
for the most
reasonable
one.

24. To find out more, you can
visit this site …
http://geology.com/articles/racetrack-playa-sliding-rocks.shtml

25. Context: This presentation is to accompany the Fantastic Places Scheme
Of Learning as developed by the Royal Geographical Society.
This particular resource is also found on this website:
http://year7geo.com/
It is partly comprised of other people’s images which I have credited.
In the same spirit of sharing as those whose work I’ve borrowed, this
presentation by James Penstone is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.