Saturday, May 27, 2023

Schools : Women in Science, Rachel Louise Carson, the marine biologist & 1st ecologist !

 




Rachel Louise Carson


“Man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.” 

Rachel Carson

Let me present you Rachel Carson, an American marine biologist who is celebrated on this day by Google. Famed marine biologist and conservationist Rachel Louise Carson on what would be her 107th birthday.
 




Google Doodle Rachel Louise Carson's 107th Birthday


The doodle was originally more aspirational in concept, much like the figure it celebrates. Carson could be seen perched on a seacliff, staring toward the sea with a light animation of her scarf flowing in the wind.





Google Doodle Rachel Louise Carson's 107th Birthday


Today, the 27 May, Google dedicates the Doodle to Rachel Louise Carson, an American marine biologist, writer and ecologist. Her book, Silent Spring was noted and credited with advancing the global movement on environment.





Silent Spring
Rachel Carson 


Google celebrates Carson's life, achievements and contributions to marine biology and ecology. The doodle shows Rachel Louise Carson in the field with a pair of binoculars around her neck and a notebook in her hand, surrounded by just the type of thriving ecosystem she warned the world - accurately, as it turned out - it risked losing. Animals include a seal, a turtle and crab, while birds depicted include a pelican, a tern and a heron.






The Google Doodle marks Rachel Louise Carson's 107th birthday. Her contributions to environmental studies were greatly appreciated by scholars and scientists. 

She was a biologist for the federal government when she first noted the effects of the unregulated use of pesticides and herbicides, especially DDT. Magazines, afraid of losing advertising, refused to publish her articles.







But her warning sparked a revolution in environmental policy and a new ecological consciousness.

Rachel Carson's most significant work was this campaign against the use of DDT (Dichloro Diphenyl Trichloroethane), a common insecticide, in the United States of America. 

"She had questioned the logic of releasing large amounts of chemicals into the environment without a sufficient understanding of their effects on ecology and human health." This led to the ban on agricultural use of DDT in America in 1972.







Rachel Carson homestead


Carson was born in Springdale, Pennsylvania. She studied English, before changing her major to Biology.

She wrote her first essay, 'The World of Waters' for a brochure at the US fisheries bureau, where she had started her career as an aquatic biologist. 

The essay however, wasn't published as her supervisor had deemed it 'too good' for that purpose. The Atlantic Monthly, an American magazine, published a revised version of the essay in July 1937.




 


Her book, The Sea Around UsNational Book Award for Non Fiction (1952) and a Burroughs Medal in nature writing. It remained on the New York Times Best Seller List for 86 weeks and it has been translated into 28 languages.

Rachel Carson pioneered a new storytelling aesthetic by making science a literary subject.


The Sea Around Us
rare edition 1952
Rachel Carson

"Nowhere is this chromatic cosmos richer than in the marine world, and no one has had more profound an impact on impressing its science and splendor upon the popular imagination than marine biologist and author Rachel Carson."




The Sea Around Us
Rachel Carson

In 1953 the book was made into a documentary film (1953). But Carson was unhappy about the final version of the script by writer Irwin Allen. The documentary went on to win the Oscar for the 'Best Documentary' in 1953.





The Sea Around Us
Irwin Allen, 1953

Oscar-winning documentary based on Rachel L. Carson's pioneering study of ocean life chronicled in her award-winning and best-selling 1951 book of the same name.






Rachel Louise Carson died on April 1964, in her home in Silver Spring, Maryland. 

Carson was awarded the 'Presidential Medal of Freedom', the highest civilian honour in the United States of America. 


Her home in Pennsylvania was renamed as Rachel Carson Homestead and became a National Register of Historic Places in 1975.





Rachel Carson at her summer home in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, USA, Sept 4th, 1962
© CBS Photo Archive/Getty


Education :
Google continued its run of doodles celebrating eminent female scientists, this time with an image to mark the 107th anniversary of the birthday of Rachel Carson. After Maria Gaeta AgnesiDorothy HodgkinMary Anning. 

Rachel Carson would be inspirational on the role of the girls and young women in many different Science knowledge areas.
She would be an important woman to all, girls and boys. Carson defended the type of thriving ecosystem as little islands.



The Sea Around Us
Special edition for young readers ebook
Rachel Carson


Invite your students to listen a little sample of the Audible audio edition here. Such a poetic prose! Beautiful! 
Published in 1951, The Sea Around Us is one of the most remarkably successful books ever written about the natural world. Rachel Carson's rare ability to combine scientific insight with moving, poetic prose catapulted her book to first place on The New York Times best seller list, where it enjoyed wide attention for 31 consecutive weeks.



Rachel Carson in woods near her Maryland home in 1962, 
the year in which Silent Spring was published. 
Photograph: Alfred Eisenstaedt/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image

Her experience as Roger’s mother, her fondness for young people and her awareness of the need to preserve children’s love of nature resulted in Rachel Carson’s last work, The Sense of Wonder, published posthumously.



The Sense pf Wonder
A celebration of nature for parents (teachers) and children
Rachel Carson ( published posthumously)

The students are invited to make a research about Carson and discuss her importance to the new environment generation as they are a part. 
It would be such an excitement to your students to discuss their own ideal about Ecology.

Curricula : Science ; History; Languages ; Arts.

“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility. ” 


Rachel CarsonThe Sense of Wonder

G-Souto

27.05.2023

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Schools : Rachel Louise Carson, the marine biologist & 1st ecologist !
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