Well, if you look at a map you will see that both cities are located on the Gulf of Mexico. And because they're located on the Gulf, that means Karen Nieft from APL is involved in their ports.

Karen Nieft is the manager of Gulf Port Operations for shipping company APL. In her job she has to manage operations at all the water ports APL calls on in the Gulf of Mexico - ports in the states of Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida. She's also in charge of managing inland container yards in those states.

If you look at your map again, you will see that the Gulf of Mexico is actually an arm of the Atlantic Ocean. Ships entering the Gulf of Mexico must travel through the Straits of Florida to get from the Atlantic; and must travel through the Yucatán Channel to get from the Caribbean Sea.

A number of major ports border on the Gulf of Mexico, and it's Karen's job to make sure that containers are moving in and out of those ports quickly and smoothly. She also has to make sure that containers moving by truck or stacktrain to inland cities in the Gulf states travel smoothly.

How does she do that? Well, the first thing Karen did when she got her job last November was visit all the ports and container yards and meet all the people involved in making them work. Now she has a firsthand picture of work at those ports, and knows what it takes to keep cargo moving.

Let's see how much you know about the Gulf of Mexico:

1. Using your map, identify as many rivers as you can that empty into the Gulf. For each river, see if you can identify its origin (that is, the place where it starts).

2. Last fall we learned about the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. In which one of these is the Gulf of Mexico located?

3. How far away from the equator is the Gulf of Mexico?

4. Using your map, identify the latitude and longitude for New Orleans and Houston.