ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Cuba's Transporation System

Cuba's streets are full of 1950s American cars and they've turned hitchhiking into an official form of transportation. Getting around - Cuban style!

 

This Module Contains:

  • General DVD with 2.15 hours of digital footage of life in Cuba.

  • Topic-specific DVD with 3.31 hours of digital footage of Cuba's varous forms of transporation.

  • Transcripts of all embedded interviews.

  • Comprehensive background information and summary materials (sample) of the footage, including flowcharts (sample)

  • Cutting-edge curriculum: teaching unit supporting social science standards complete with class activities, grading rubrics, four Power Point presentations, lecture materials, graphic organizers, homework assignments, a video on how to use the footage, and student briefing materials

                                                                                                                                          

 

 Blue Car Grill

On The Road In Cuba. Cubans are a remarkably ingenious people, managing to keep thousands of 50-year-old cars and even antique steam trains running with little more than rubber bands and duct tape. The Cuban government, reacting to one international crisis after another, has turned hitchhiking into an official form of transportation and built enormous “camel buses” that lumber through Havana’s crumbling streets. Cubans have even found a way to make waiting in line as friendly and painless as possible.  But great changes are coming to this small but resilient island.  Will Cubans be able to adapt?

 

 

 

Teaching Unit Overview:  Transportation networks are the veins and arteries of any society, allowing goods and services to circulate to where they will provide the greatest benefit. A country’s transportation system can be profoundly influenced by cultural values, political priorities, economic scarcity, and even foreign agendas.  How and why these factors cause distortions in the pricing and availability of Cuba’s various transportation options is the subject of this unit.  Can (and should) public transportation be used as a political tool for social equality and income redistribution?  How important is the conservation of resources, and what price are people – and their government – willing to pay?  Once students have thoroughly investigated these and related issues, they will determine the impact of Cuba’s gradual shift towards a free market economy and the eventual lifting of the embargo on the country’s unique transportation system.

 

Footage Highlights:

  • Cars – repair, antiques, etc.

  • Bus – local, tourist, “camel”, etc.

  • Waiting in line

  • Hitchhiking

  • Steam Train

  • Horse cart, shared taxi, pedicabs, etc.

  • Havana        

Licensing Fees

One-year, single classroom educational license: $250. Introductory price: $95.

Site license: contact Take 2

District license: contact Take 2