In this classroom activity, students consider geographic context--features like mountains, rainforest, and rivers--in order to assess their influence on transport mode selection, speed, weight limit, and cost. Cost of transport, in turn, has significant effects on the local economy. Students will learn that people in a place must import anything…

One of the greatest needs of our country is good public roads. The reason we do not have them wherever needed is not primarily because of the cost of building them, for in the last quarter of the century we have spent more money for other things not half as valuable or half as much needed than would be required to pay for the building of good…