Louisiana's land, coast, and inland waterways are home to many natural resources such as seafood, petroleum, natural gas, and timber--and freshwater crawfish, or "mudbugs" as the locals like to call them. These natural resources are vital to Louisiana's economy. The author describes a unit of study on economics in which a teacher taught and reinforced basic economic terms such as "supply" and demand" as well as natural, capital, and human resources that are required to create products for market. These abstract terms came to life in the classroom when the teacher applied them to discussions about the local economy--which touched on things and places that students had experienced in their own lives. To conclude the unit of study, students were asked to think about the various natural resources and agricultural products of Louisiana such as oil, natural gas, crawfish, lumber, cotton, soybeans, sugarcane, and rice. They were also asked to write a short report and create a diorama about the mining, production, or conservation of a natural resource in Louisiana. (Contains 6 notes.)