Silent Spring

On a spring evening of 2010 my parents had decided to take my brother, sister, and I with them to the residence of their friends, entailing that we will have a bonfire and we will hang out and have fun for the evening. It had seemed strange that it was such a positive advertisement as no less than a half an hour ago they were scurrying to find us a babysitter. Reluctantly we agree and we enter the car and commence a car-ride. We arrived at the end of a wooden enclosure to be subject to a house…

serious ecological problems. It is now estimated that nearly all living beings, both plant and animal, are contaminated by organochlorine insecticides (Garabrant et al. 1992). Concern over the use of DDT began in the 1960s, when the famous book Silent Spring by Rachel Carlson described a series of harmful effects on the environment and wildlife resulting from pesticide use. The author specifically emphasized the effect of DDT in weakening the eggshells of the American eagle (Haliaetus…

A Generation of Conformists: How Things Have Changed Sir Ken Robinson’s, “How Schools Kill Creativity,” and Roger Scruton’s, “The Idea of University” describe education from the past, how it is currently, and that it continues to evolve and change. I am sure by now, most have heard of the marshmallow study done in the 1960’s at a Stanford University campus nursery school. In a nutshell, a child is seated at a table with a marshmallow in front of them. The she is told if she waits fifteen minutes…

“From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me” (pg.115). The Holocaust was the systematic murder of more than six million Jews that Adolf Hitler organized. During this time, envision being entirely alone without anyone to turn to, not even God himself. In the memoir Night written by Elie Wiesel, a son and father experience the unimaginable. Their journey throughout concentration camps leads them to death, face to face. The…

Behavior Although mostly terrestrial, Didelphis virginiana also uses arboreal and aquatic locomotion. On the ground, its gait resembles that of primitive mammals [6], which is unsurprising given that opossum-like mammals first appeared over 65 million years ago around the time when the dinosaurs were going extinct [12]. Though the opossum’s arboreal locomotion is aided by the adaptations mentioned earlier, it is still relatively slow and clumsy. However, it is a strong – if slow – swimmer, and…

Throughout history and our current era, secrets have been uncovered by behind-the-scenes workers. These people use their skills to release information to the public that never would have been seen or heard, and by exposing the misconduct of certain individuals or institutions, they are necessary for learning secrets that hide in the corners of our world. Muckrakers use investigative journalism to uncover the lies and information necessary to the public, forcibly removing citizens from ignorance…

I stopped volunteering at the Humane Society and put all of my energy into the house. I cleaned, prepared for showings, prepared as much as I could for our future move. As I went through every room and made a keep and discard pile, I wrote myself a mental list and had it memorized in a few weeks. 1- I wasn’t depressed after Kat moved out. I just didn't know how to only be consumed with my needs. 2- I didn't want to have the party. If Paul listened to me, it never would…

This type of chemical helps enormously in planting crops or killing the insects to abandon diseases. However, DDT has lots of harmful side effects to other beings. Rachel Carson pointed out her perspective in one of her books, which is Silent Spring. “How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind?” (Rachel Carson 8) Human beings should consider…

The title of the article "Why Killing Coyotes Doesn't Make Livestock Safe" is an effective hook because it draws in readers from both sides of the debate it discusses. Conservationists will be concerned with wildlife populations, and owners of livestock will be interested in the safety of their own animals. Megan M. Draheim's article follows up on its title with a startling introduction: the US government's Wildlife Services killed more than 70,000 coyotes in the year of 2016. Despite the fact…

In 1962, Rachel Carson, an acclaimed author, asked the country what it would be like if there were no birds singing in the trees when they went outdoors. What would it be like to have a “silent spring”? Carson brought to light the impact of the commonly used pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) on the ecosystem, most specifically how it affected birds and other wildlife, at a time when such considerations were not a part of the public discourse (PAN). Over the next several years,…