Unit 3: Louisiana Economics

Unit Description

Ever wonder why your mom and dad don’t let you buy everything you want? Why do some toys say made in China? Why are prices so high for some items and cheaper for others? In this unit, we will explore how people earn money to buy the things they want and need. We will investigate how every member of our community is dependent on one another to create wealth. We will discover how people use natural resources to trade. Understanding economics is important so we know how to make and spend our money.

Essential Question

What economic choices does my family make?

Themes

  • A region’s geography and climate affect how people live.
  • People make economic decisions based on needs and wants.
  • Inventions change the world and how people live in it.

Standards Addressed

  • 3.7.1 Identify various ways that people earn income and how earning income contributes to the economic well-being of their community and state
  • 3.7.2 List different ways people save their income and explain the advantages and disadvantages of each
  • 3.7.3 Explain the benefits of comparative shopping when making economic decisions
  • 3.8.1 Investigate the economic concepts of opportunity cost, scarcity, and surplus/shortage and give examples of each based on needs and wants
  • 3.8.2 Investigate ways in which people are producers and consumers and explain why they depend on one another
  • 3.8.3 Describe the basic concepts of supply and demand and explain how competition affects the prices of goods and services
  • 3.8.4 Explain how producers and consumers affect prices
  • 3.9.1 Explain the concepts of specialization and interdependence in the production of goods and services
  • 3.9.2 Investigate the responsibilities and characteristics of various jobs
  • 3.10.1 Differentiate between imports and exports of goods in Louisiana
  • 3.10.2 Distinguish between the use of money and barter

Unit Outcomes

Guiding Questions

  • How do citizens interact with a democratic government?
  • How are leaders held responsible in a democratic government?
  • What qualities make a good leader?
  • How do we elect our leaders, and what are we looking for in our leaders?
  • What is the difference between a rule and a law?
  • Why do communities and the government make rules and laws?
  • What are the 3 branches of the US government?
  • What is the role of each branch of government?
  • How do parts of the government work together?
  • What services does the government provide to citizens?
  • How does the government meet the needs of its citizens?


Students will be able to…

Historical Thinking:

  • Annotate documents
    • Use the different steps for different types of documents when analyzing their contents
    • Unit focus writing skill
  • Source documents
    • Identify author’s point of view/position on a historical event
    • Identify author’s purpose in producing the document
    • Consider the source’s audience
  • Contextualize sources
    • Understand how context influences content of the document
    • Recognize documents are products of particular points in time
  • Close read sources
    • Identify author’s claims about an event
    • Evaluate evidence and reasoning the author uses to support claims
    • Evaluate author’s word choice

Writing

  • Annotate documents
    • Use the different steps for different types of documents when analyzing their contents
  • Source documents
    • Identify author’s point of view/position on a historical event
    • Identify author’s purpose in producing the document
    • Consider the source’s audience
  • Contextualize sources
    • Understand how context influences content of the document
    • Recognize documents are products of particular points in time
  • Close read sources
    • Identify author’s claims about an event
    • Evaluate evidence and reasoning the author uses to support claims
    • Evaluate author’s word choice

Unit Vocabulary

  1. economy: the system of how money is made and used within a particular country or region.
  2. barter system: like trading, it is used to exchange things for other things instead of using money
  3. want: something you would like to have, but don’t need to survive
  4. need: something you must have in order to survive
  5. scarcity/ shortage: a very small supply of something
  6. abundance/ surplus: a large amount of something
  7. economic choice: when people comparatively shop and decide on what to buy based off of how much money they have.
  8. comparative shopping: when you choose one item out of two or more. .
  9. opportunity cost: the choice that is given up when making an economic decision
  10. goods: things that people make or grow and then sell.
  11. services: work performed by someone for someone else
  12. consumer: someone who buys goods and services
  13. producer: someone who sells goods and services
  14. human resources: the people who do work to make products or provide services
  15. capital resources: things needed to produce goods and services
  16. natural resources: useful materials that come from the earth
  17. profit- money made
  18. price: the cost of something, determined by supply and demand
  19. supply: the amount of something available
  20. demand: how much consumers want something
  21. economic competition: when businesses compete to have the lowest possible prices in order to get consumer business
  22. specialization: when each person has a special skill and does one job or one part of a project
  23. division of labor: when a project is divided, or broken down, into smaller jobs.
  24. interdependence: depending on others to help you get things you need and want
  25. import: buying and bringing a product into a state or country
  26. export: send a product to another state or country to be sold
  27. industry: major business that the state makes money from
  28. petroleum: oil; one of Louisiana’s major industries
  29. income: money that is earned
  30. fertile soil: land that is good for growing crops
  31. levee- man-made structure used to protect places we live from being flooded
  32. delta- land that forms at the end of a river from the build up of of soil
  33. land loss / coastal erosion- coastal land turning into open water over time
  34. wetlands - marshes or swamps
  35. invasive species - an animal or plant that is not native to the land; often causes damage to the ecosystem
  36. oil refineries - industrial plant used to make oil into gas
  37. career: a job in a specialized field that someone does for a long time
  38. job requirements - things you have to know in order to do the job.
  39. earn: receive something in return for work or services done
  40. income - money earned