Reading material:

The Great Lakes: An Environmental Atlas and Resource Book, US EPA and Government of Canada, 2002, on line here

City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America by Donald L. Miller, Simon & Schuster, 1998

Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West by William Cronon, W. W. Norton 1991

The Chicago River: An Illustrated History and Guide to the River and Its Waterways, Second Edition by David M. Solzman, U. Chicago Press, 2006

The Chicago River: A Natural and Unnatural History by Libby Hill, Lake Claremont Press, 2000

Weather and Climate of the Great Lakes Region by Val L. Eichenlaub, U. Notre Dame Press, 1979

Lake Michigan in Motion: Responses of an Inland Sea to Weather, Earth-Spin, and Human Activities by Clifford H. Mortimer, U. Wisconsin Press, 2004

A Natural History of the Chicago Region by Joel Greenberg, U. Chicago Press, 2004

After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America by E. C. Pielou, U. Chicago Press, 1991

The Day Before America: Changing the Face of a Continent by William H. MacLeish, Houghton Mifflin, 1994

Around the Shores of Lake Michigan: A Guide to Historic Sites by Margaret B. Bougue, U. Wisconsin Press, 1985

Geology Underfoot in Illinois by Raymond Wiggers, Mountain Press, 1997

Web resources

History

Chicago Historical Society

Wisconsin Historical Society

Encyclopedia of Chicago

Great Lakes Maritime History Project

Great Lakes and Seaway Shipping

Grosse Point Lighthouse: here or here

Chicago Portage National Historic Site

Environment & Economy

EPA Atlas

Great Lakes Information Network

NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab

Climate past, present & future

Great Lakes Weather and Climate activities

US National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change for the Great Lakes region

Illinois State Museum (Ice Ages)

UC San Diego Virtual Museum

Texas A&M Oceanworld

American Institute of Physics climate site

Advocacy Groups

Alliance for the Great Lakes

Friends of the Chicago River

Water Pressures media project

Burnham Plan

Beyond Burnham (NPR program)

Burnham Plan Centennial

Lake Dunes & Northwestern Lakefill

Indiana Dunes

NU Lakefill

Illinois Beach State Park