An Assessment of the Impacts of Climate Change in Illinois
Provided by: The Nature Conservancy|Published on: May 16, 2025|Last updated: September 26, 2026
Grades: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Type: Articles/Websites
Subjects: Earth and Space Sciences
Authors: Donald Wuebbles
Location: North America > United States > Illinois
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
Synopsis
- This report from The Nature Conservancy in Illinois is appropriate to provide a summary of the threats that climate change poses to Illinois precipitation patterns, weather, hydrology, agriculture, human health, and ecosystems.
- The effects of decreasing and increasing greenhouse gases are examined and potential solutions and areas for further research are detailed.
Teaching Materials
Positives
- This report breaks up the different effects of climate change into sections that are easy to find and read.
- Local Illinois data and examples that students in this region can relate to are provided in the report.
Prerequisites
- Students should have an understanding of what climate change is.
- An understanding of the correlation between increased levels of carbon dioxide and increasing temperatures is necessary to comprehend the predictions in this article.
- It may be helpful if students discuss if they have noticed any changes in weather patterns, precipitation, or seasonal temperatures over the years prior to reading this report.
Differentiation & Implementation
- Students can be placed into groups, and this report can be assigned as a jigsaw activity, giving each group one of the impacts of climate change to become an expert on and report back to the class.
- After reading this report, students can choose one of the effects of climate change to elaborate on in a research project or presentation.
- Math and data analysis can be incorporated with this resource by having students research any impact of climate change mentioned in the report (water table levels during certain months, corn yield, soybean yield, etc) and graph them to compare the changes.
- This lesson can be used to further explain the connection between climate change and increases in extreme weather patterns.
This document succinctly walks readers through climate change, the impacts on the weather, agriculture, water, human health, and ecosystems, as well as climate inequality and research that will help address the impacts. The document does a nice job of providing an overview of climate change in IL while explaining the concepts above in a simple and easy-to-understand way, while still including necessary details. The information presented is accurate, and this resource is recommended for teaching.
Teaching Tips
Standards
Resource Type and Format
Scientist Reviewed
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Our review process ensures that every resource in our library reflects the current state of climate science.
Learn about our review process →
