Two teenagers just changed what a million high schoolers will learn. Starting in fall 2026, every public high school in Illinois must teach climate change—its causes, its impacts, and what students can actually do about it. The law passed this year, and it exists because Iris Shadis-Greengas and Grace Brady decided their peers deserved better.
Shadis-Greengas, then a senior at Naperville Central High School, wrote the proposal for a capstone course. She submitted it to State Representative Janet Yang Rohr, who decided to sponsor it. When Brady, a student at Neuqua Valley High School, discovered she was working on something similar, they joined forces. Despite some pushback on the House floor, the bill passed. Illinois is now the fifth state to mandate climate curriculum in high schools.
"A bill that was written by a high schooler, I thought that was really cool a legislator would actually do that," Shadis-Greengas told NBC Chicago.
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Start Your News DetoxThe why matters here. Brady, now studying climate policy at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, put it plainly: "There's so much misinformation everywhere. I really want people, when they encounter these things, to say, 'Oh, well, in school I learned that this is the science. This is what's correct.' They'll be able to be mindful of the content they see and know that science is real."
That's not abstract. That's a 15-year-old recognizing that climate literacy isn't just about facts—it's about giving students tools to navigate a world drowning in competing narratives. When you know the science, you can spot the spin.
Rep. Yang Rohr framed it in terms of agency: "The legislation makes sure that people know that it's happening, how it's happened and, most importantly, what they can do to make a change." State Senator Adriane Johnson, who also championed the bill, echoed that: "Young people are eager to learn about real, meaningful, and equitable solutions to the impacts of the climate crisis."
The curriculum is being built now by the state's Board of Education and Environmental Protection Agency. It rolls out in the 2026-2027 school year, which means roughly a million Illinois high schoolers—grades 9 through 12—will graduate with a shared foundation in climate science. That's significant. It's the difference between climate change being an optional elective and a baseline expectation of what an educated person should understand.
What happens next is quieter but possibly more important: how this ripples. When curriculum standards shift in a major state, textbook companies adjust. Teachers in other states notice. Other legislatures get asked why their students don't have the same requirement. One law in Illinois doesn't fix the climate crisis, but it does shift what the next generation knows going in.
