In her seminar work, Deborah Rabinowitz illustrated that rarity is not a single trait, but is defined by three factors; Distribution, Population Size and Habitat preferences. She showed that although these three factors interact, they are independent of each other. Given this understanding, she was able to show that there were seven types based on these three factors. We want to engage students to help us categorize rare species of Illinois into these categories so we can look for trends associated with their types of rarity.