Water Education Poster - Navigation

Navigation Poster for Elementary School Students

NAVIGATION is travel or transportation over water, Many different kinds of boats and ships are used on rivers and oceans to move people and products from one place to another.

Navigation was extremely important for foreign and domestic trade and travel in the early days of our country before cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes were invented. In those days, rivers were used as "roads" to connect inland settlements to river and coastal ports. Communities established at these commercial ports became important economic, cultural, and social hubs in the development of our Nation.

Many of the products we use and eat today are still transported by vessels on deep oceans and relatively shallow rivers or inland waterways. Towboats push barges (labeled in red) loaded with products such as grain, coal, and petroleum up and down rivers to loading and unloading facilities. Activities at a deep-water coastal port might include the loading or unloading of large commercial ocean-going vessels with lumber, oil, or cargo in large containers. Ocean-going vessels (labeled in yellow) maneuver in deep coastal harbors with the help of tugboats.

Navigation activities in the United States take place at more than 400 ports and along more than 25,000 miles of waterways. Some of the ports and waterways making up the extendsive navigation network in this country are shown on the map below. Most rivers in the western part of the United States are not used for commercial navigation. Some of these rivers are used instead for recreation, irrigation, and generation of electricity. Shallow harbors or rivers are made safe for navigation by dredging or the construction of locks and dams.