Rebecca Bell, an environmental education specialist from the Maryland State Department of Education, grew up ? albeit decades later ? in the same western Pennsylvania outdoors as Rachel Carson, whose landmark 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” exposed the dangers of pesticides.
“We walked in the same woods by the Allegheny River,” Bell said. “My class read her book in high school, and I wanted to be a conservationist ? which was it was called then ? like her.”
“It?s funny,” Bell said. “Now, I?m getting close to retiring, and I look back and realize that?s what happened.”
Thirty-seven years after her high school graduation, Bell will work this spring with the Newton Marasco Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Northern Virginia, to support Maryland juniors and seniors in their own environmental education.
Bell, representing the Department of Education, will join Newton Marasco Foundation President Amy Marasco Newton to announce the new Rachel Carson Scholars program for Maryland students March 6 in Annapolis. High school juniors and seniors with strong academic records who have actively participated in community-based environmental stewardship activities will be considered.
The top three winners will receive monetary awards: $1,000 for first place, $750 for second place and $500 for third place. The scholars will be recognized during a ceremony May 24 at the Patuxent Research Refuge National Wildlife Visitor Center in Laurel. A production of the play “A Sense of Wonder,” about Carson, will be included in the program.
“The idea is to boost and help these bright high school students and encourage them to continue their environmental studies as they go off to college,” Bell said.
Last year, the Newton Marasco Foundation and Department of Education began its partnership with “GreenFocus,” an environmental photo contest open to Maryland high school students that continues this spring.
“We?re starting the Rachel Carson Scholars program in Maryland because she lived there such a long time,” Marasco Newton said. “If it proves to be successful, we plan on expanding similar programs to Washington, D.C., and Virginia students.”
Carson spent much of her adult life in Silver Spring, writing and working for decades with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She earned a master?s degree in marine biology from Johns Hopkins in 1932. She died of cancer in Silver Spring in 1964. The scholars program coincides with and highlights the centennial celebration of her birth.
State Sen. Brian Frosh, an environmental leader and co-sponsor of the Clean Car Act in Maryland, has introduced legislation in the state assembly this year to mark May 27 ? Carson?s birthday ? as Rachel Carson Day in Maryland.
“She may be the best environmental teacher we?ve ever had,” Frosh said of Carson. “Her work was groundbreaking at the time. People had no idea that what we were doing to the environment was coming back to hurt us. She demonstrated the interconnectedness of all life.”
In his introduction to the 40th anniversary edition of “Silent Spring,” former Vice President Al Gore, whose film “An Inconvenient Truth” won the Oscar for best documentary Sunday night, wrote, ” ? without this book, the environmental movement might have been long delayed or never have developed at all.”
“We want kids to ask, ?who is Rachel Carson?,? ” Bell said. ” … With the scholars program, maybe we can help produce the next generation of Rachel Carsons.”
