SILENT SPRING BY RACHEL CARSON AP ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE READING

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Silent Spring


SILENT SPRING BY RACHEL CARSON AP ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE READING

Silent Spring

by Rachel Carson



AP Environmental Science

Reading Extension and Study Guide




Goal: Students will examine the seminal work by Rachel Carson which first brought pesticides and the wide-spread use of chemicals in the environment to the public’s attention.


Objectives: Students will …

Read Silent Spring for scientific content.


Respond to prompts that will connect the science narrative and their

understanding of literature.


Identify the main idea(s), the author’s argument, and theme of the chosen

chapter.


Timeline: All of the required written assignments are due on August 29, 2008. This is the first major grade of the year, hence, make sure to turn all materials in on time.

Silent Spring

Rachel Carson Biography Sheet


Rachel Louise Carson


Born: May 27, 1907

In Springsdale, Pennsylvania


Died: April 14, 1964

In Silver Spring, Maryland



Rachel Carson, writer, scientist, and ecologist, grew up simply in the rural river town of Springsdale, Pennsylvania. Her mother bequeathed to her a life-long of nature and the living world that Rachel expressed first as a writer and later as a student of marine biology. Carson graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women (now Catham College) in 1929, studied at the Woods Hold Marine Biological Laboratory, and received her M.A. in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932.


She was hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to write radio scripts during the Depression and supplemented her income writing feature articles on natural history for the Baltimore Sun. She began a fifteen-year career in the federal service as a scientist and editor in 1936 and rose to become Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.


She wrote pamphlets on conservation and natural resources and edited scientific articles, but in her free time turned her government research into lyric prose, first as an article Undersea (1937, for the Atlantic Monthly), and then in a book, Under the Sea-Wind (1941). In 1952 she published her prize-winning study of the ocean, The Sea Around Us, which was followed by The Edge of the Sea in 1955. These books constituted a biography of the ocean and made Carson famous as a naturalist and science writer for the public. Carson resigned from government service in 1952 to devote herself to her writing.


She wrote several other articles designed to teach people about the wonder and beauty of the living world, including: Help Your Child to Wonder (1956) and Our Ever-Changing Shore (1957), and planned another book on the ecology of life. Embedded within all of Carson’s writing was the view that human beings were but one part of nature distinguishes primarily by their power to alter it, in some cases irreversibly. Disturbed by the profligate use of synthetic chemical pesticides after World War II, Carson reluctantly changed her focus in order to warn the public about the long term effects of misusing pesticides. In Silent Spring (1962), she challenged the practices of agricultural scientists and the government, and called for a change in the way humankind viewed the natural world.


Carson was attacked by the chemical industry and some in government as an alarmist, but courageously spoke out to remind us that we are a vulnerable part of the natural world subject to the same damage as the rest of the ecosystem. Testifying before Congress in 1963, Carson called for new policies to protect human health and the environment.


Rachel Carson died in 1964 after a long battle against breast cancer. Her witness for the beauty and integrity of life continues to inspire new generations to protect the living world and all its creatures.


Courtesy of www.rachelcarson.org

Silent Spring

Rachel Carson Biography Student Sheet


Name:___________________________________________ Date:_______________________

Directions: Respond to the following questions in full and complete sentences. Use a dictionary to define the following vocabulary words from the biography piece.

Bequeathed_____________________________________________________________

Zoology________________________________________________________________

Lyric Prose______________________________________________________________

Naturalist_______________________________________________________________

Profligate_______________________________________________________________

Vulnerable______________________________________________________________


  1. Judging from the subjects that Carson studied in college and the jobs she had, describe what you thing her interests were.








  1. Rachel Carson became the Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when she was 29 years old. What are some things about this situation which make it unique or different?








  1. Explain what you think the book Silent Spring will be about and what the message might be now that you know more about the author.

Silent Spring

Chapter 1- “A Fable for Tomorrow”

Student Sheet


Name:__________________________________________ Date:_____________________


Directions: Read Chapter 1 of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and complete the following questions.


  1. Write a brief summary of this chapter (four or five sentences).







  1. Pick out some phrases that you think are particularly good at describing the pretty town in the fable.







  1. Rachel Carson describes a “strange blight” that crept over the area. Pick out some phrases that particularly appeal to you that show how the land is dying.







  1. What can you guess might have caused the “silent spring” in this town?

Silent Spring

Chapter 3 – “Elixirs of Death”

Student Sheet


Name:_______________________________________Date:_____________________


Directions: Read Chapter 3 of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and complete the following questions.


  1. Write a brief summary of this chapter (four to five sentences).






  1. Rachel Carson identifies pesticide usage as a problem for the environment. List at least four of the pesticides she describes and what they are used for.





  1. DDT is one of the pesticides that Rachel Carson lists as being harmful for the environment. Explain why people thought DDT was a wonderful invention when it first came on the market.








  1. Rachel Carson published this book in 1962. Do you think that any of the chemicals she lists are still in use? Why or why not?

Silent Spring

Chapter 9 – “Rivers of Death”

Student Sheet


Name:_____________________________________________ Date:_______________


Directions: Read Chapter 9 of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and complete the following questions.


  1. Write a brief summary of the chapter (four to five sentences).







  1. Explain what Carson describes as the short-term effects of DDT in the salmon habitat and the long-term effects of the DDT in the salmon habitat.






  1. List other river and stream species that have been affected by the contamination of water.






  1. Explain the ways in which Carson says that pesticides get into our rivers and streams.

Silent Spring

Chapter 12 – “The Human Price”

Student Sheet


Name:________________________________________ Date:_________________


Directions: Read Chapter 12 of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and complete the following questions.


  1. Write a brief summary of this chapter (four to five sentences).





  1. What do you think Carson means when she writes, “Man, however much he would like to pretend to the contrary, is part of nature.” Think particularly about humans’ treatment of the earth.





  1. Explain what Carson sees as the threat to human health from pesticides in the long term.




  1. Remember that Carson was writing and researching pesticides over forty years ago. If she were writing today, what do you think the greatest threat to the environment would be?





  1. Write a paragraph warning people of the threat you have identified. Try to make it as compelling as Carson did.

Silent Spring

Discussion Questions


  1. What is Carson’s main means of persuasion in Silent Spring and how sound is the rhetorical choice on her part?





  1. How does Caron represent the users of chemical poisons in the book? Are they demonized as a means of setting up a weak opponent in the argument or are they responsibly represented?





  1. What is Carson’s targeted audience? It is the chemical companies, the state agencies, or the average citizen?




  1. What alternative methods of insect control does Carson write about? Does the alternative sound credible?





  1. Determine what kind of persona Carson adopts. Is it the persona of a scientist, a public-minded citizen, or an average concerned citizen? How does the persona function in the argument to win the reader’s confidence?






  1. Why did the author title the book “Silent Spring”?


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