Oklahoma Academic Standard 4. The student will identify basic economic activities of the United States. 

Objective 4.2 Describe the patterns and networks of economic interdependence among regions of the United  States.

 B.  Identify the major economic activities of each region of the United States by comparing how people satisfy their basic needs through the production of goods and services.   

 C.  Describe the relative location of natural resources, such as fossil fuels, minerals and soils, and their relationship to each region’s major economic activities, including agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, energy, and services.

In a Nutshell

Each region’s economy is driven heavily by the available natural resources and physical features of the region. Each region of the United States is dependent on other regions for resources, goods, and services that are not available locally. Students should develop a basic understanding of how this interdependence can affect the supply and demand for goods and services. 

Teacher Action 

Student Action 

• Assist students in creating and using maps, data graphs and charts, photographs and other geographic representations to explain spatial relationships of physical regions and how that region’s natural resources impact other regions. 

• Facilitate student analysis of the role of innovation and entrepreneurship in a market economy.

• Explain how the concepts of supply and demand operate in a market economy, using historic and contemporary examples.

• Identify positive and negative incentives that influence economic decision making in each region of the United States.

• Interpret and draw conclusions from economic data on charts and graphs.

•  Explain how trade influences growth and progress of nations. 

Key Concepts 

Misconceptions 

• economic interdependence, benefits and costs

• trade, imports, exports

• economic activities: primary (including extraction of fossil fuels and minerals, agriculture, livestock, forestry)

• economic activities: secondary (including manufacturing of consumer goods from raw materials, innovation, entrepreneurship) 

• economic activities: tertiary (including service industries such as banking, education, medicine)

• market economic system (or "free market") 
  

         Economic Activities by Region:

• Northeast - lumber, manufacturing, fishing, steel, service industries such as banking, finance, insurance

• Southeast - agriculture, mining, fishing, tourism, aerospace

• Southwest - fossil fuels, mining, tourism, tribal enterprises

• Midwest - agriculture and livestock, services, fossil fuels. manufacturing

• West - large-scale agriculture, ranching, tourism, manufacturing, entertainment industry, tribal enterprises

• Many students do not realize that all regions, in fact all countries to some extent, are interdependent on each other for goods and services that humans use on a regular basis. 

• Most student have limited prior knowledge of the basic types of economic activities; however, an introduction to these levels of economic activity (primary, secondary, tertiary) will assist students to understand how economies grow in a market system. 

Instructional Resources