Writer, scientist, and ecologist, Rachel Carson, grew up simply in the rural river town of Springdale, Pennsylvania. Her mother bequeathed to her a life-long love 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 in 1929, studied at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, and received her MA in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932.

Disturbed by the prolific use of synthetic chemical pesticides after World War II, Carson warned 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.

Rachel's work initiated the ban of the DDT pesticide.