Tag Archives: YERT

Rachel Carson’s Homesteads and her 110th Birthday Celebration

English: Pittsburgh Ninth Street Bridge, now Rachel Carson Bridge as seen from the top of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you have crossed the river from downtown to the Northside you probably know the name Rachel Carson because you have crossed the Rachel Carson Bridge. The Rachel Carson Bridge is one of the Three Sister’s bridges, the other two bridges are named for Roberto Clemente and Andy Warhol. If you are not familiar with her work, this should give you a clue that Rachel Carson is an important Pittsburgher.

Rachel Carson was born in Springdale, just up the Allegheny river from Pittsburgh and her work as a scientist and conservationist continues to have a huge impact around the world today. She is In 1962, Carson published the book “Silent Spring” that launched the environmental movement and eventually led to a ban on DDT. Carson’s book was the catalyst for the environmental movement which led to the creation of the EPA.

There are two historic buildings that served as homes for Rachel Carson that can be visited today:

Birthplace – The Rachel Carson Homestead in Springdale, PA is where Carson was born. The house still exists today and is open for tours, educational events and this weekend will host a birthday celebration in honor of Carson’s 110th birthday.
Residence – The other Rachel Carson homestead is in Colesville, Maryland. This house in Maryland is where wrote “Silent Spring.” Ryan Morden visited the house in Colesville a few years ago and wrote a post, A Visit to Rachel Carson’s Other House, about this house which was named a National Historic Landmark in 1991.

Rachel Carson Homestead, 613 Marion Ave, Springdale

Timeline of the Rachel Carson Homestead

1901 – Carson family moves into home in Springdale
1907 – Rachel Carson is born
1929 – Rachel Carson graduates from Pennsylvania College for Women, now known as Chatham University
1962 – Silent Spring is published
1964 – Rachel Carson dies of a heart attack at her home in Maryland
1975 – Rachel Carson Homestead Association is established
1976 – Rachel Carson Homestead added to the National Register of Historic Places

Visit the Rachel Carson Homestead in Springdale, PA

By ccbarr (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Docent led tours of the Rachel Carson Homestead are available on Saturdays from April 22, 2017 through November 2017.

Hours: Homestead is open 10:30am-1:30pm, tours starts on the hour at 11am, noon & 1pm.
Cost: A minimum donation of $10 is requested for each adult, $3 for children.
Website: rachelcarsonhomestead.org
Social Media: Facebook Page,

Tours are also available by appointment, email Info@RachelCarsonHomestead.org for details.

Special Events at the Rachel Carson Homestead

The Rachel Carson Homestead hosts a number of special events throughout the year, especially during the summer. In fact, my first visit to the Rachel Carson Homestead was for a welcome home party and lecture from Mark Dixon and the filmmakers, who spent a year traveling to all 50 states to make a documentary, YERT – Your Environmental Road Trip. The documentary is about how people are embracing sustainability. (I wrote a blog post about their homecoming back in 2008 , You Can See a Year of Garbage at the YERT Homecoming. Yes, they carried all of the trash from the entire trip with them)

Follow the Rachel Carson Homestead Association on Facebook to learn about upcoming events.

Saturday, May 27 – Rachel Carson 110th Birthday Celebration

This Saturday, the Rachel Carson Homestead will host a birthday celebration.

Saturday, May 27, 2017
Noon-5pm
Music by Earth Mama, cake, raffles,
Free (please rsvp by sending an email to info@RachelCarsonHomestead.org)
Facebook Event

More information on the birthday celebration and the involvement of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation is available here.

Links Worth a Look – July 6th

Here are some links/articles/blog posts that are worth a look:

Big Burrito Email List – If you like food, restaurants, cooking or learning more about a Pittsburgh business – we suggest that you sign up for the Big Burrito Mailing List – they do a really nice job with the updates each month and it is nice to read more about how their restaurants come together, where the food comes from and what non profits they are working to support each month.
If you are a business owner this is a great example of how you can use email to tell your story to your customers and potential customers too.

And each email comes with a story and some seasonal recipes from the Big Burrito corporate chef.
Best Restaurants for American Cuisine: OpenTable 2010 Diners’ Choice Winners | – Big Burrito's Eleven has made Open Tables list of top 50 Best Restaurants for American Cuisine. Thanks to the Big Burrito folks for putting Pittsburgh on the map again.
Startup! – Take or Teach Classes about Business in Your Community – Keep an eye out for more classes from Startup! this is a new project offering classes in creating businesses that benefit communities. We learned about StartUp! from Mark Dixon – who has been creating a great community around going green with his 50 state tour and documentary – YERT.

Follow IheartPGH on Twitter – we share more links there almost daily!

Sierra Club Enviromental Film Festival featuring Mark Dixon from YERT

Image by michael and anna via Flickr

Saturday, April 18th, 2009, 6-10pm is the 2nd evening of the Sierra Club’s Environmental Film Festival. They have a great line up of 5 different films for the evening – including a showing of some of the YERT footage. YERT stands for Your Environmental Road Trip (see the our post on the YERT kick-off and follow up from last year).

After his year long environmental road trip, YERT founder Mark Dixon has decided to make Pittsburgh his home and he will be at the film festival on Saturday. I have had the opportunity to get to know Mark over the past 2 years and I really enjoyed his presentation at the 2009 GLUE (Great Lakes Urban Exchange) Conference that we attended last month in Milwaukee. I am also thankful that Mark has introcuded me to the chico bag and that I have significantly reduced the number of plastic bags needed for shopping this year.

Here is the schedulfor Saturday:

Garden Song – If you want to get psyched for gardening, this should do it! (28 mins)
Eden’s Lost and Found: Philadelphia – If Philly can do it, so can we! How volunteer organizations have redeemed inner-city Philadelphia’s environment on a shoe-string. (57 minutes)
YERT (Your Environmental Road Trip) – A zany, clever, fun, interesting and totally up-to-date look at what’s happening nationwide in the environment, with Mark Dixon, the filmmaker. Not to be missed! Really first class fun. Great for all ages. (about 90 mins)
Cheat Neutral – A satirical look at carbon offsetting. Does it really work? (13 mins)
Black Diamonds – Mountain-top removal at its worst. How it’s destroying our neighbors in West Virginia and what we can do about it. (72 mins)

Here is the trailer for Black Diamonds…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Zb3Tb0oSM[/youtube]

Links Worth a Look – September 28th

Here are some links/articles/blog posts that are worth a look:

MCG Jazz » MCG Jazz Mission – MCG Jazz’s mission is to preserve, present and promote jazz. Through our performances, we strengthen the long time Pittsburgh jazz community and contribute to the overall cultural and artistic diversity of the region. Through our live recordings we reach a national and international audience – a market we’d like to grow. Through our educational programs we are able to have students attend the concerts at low or no cost to them, make artists available for master classes and provide opportunities for internships in production and marketing.
Pittsburghers knit items for upcoming movie with Charlize Theron – Check out this great story about how some Pittsbrugh knitters ended up creating some items for an upcoming movie with Charlize Theron
Living on Earth: Your Environmental Road Trip – YERT (Your Enviromental Road Trip) who started and ended their trip in Pittsburgh is featured on the radio program Living on Earth.

Click here to see more links we like.

You Can See a Year of Garbage at the YERT Homecoming

Step in to the blog time machine or click here to go back to June 2007. A group of folks held a kick off event right here in Pittsburgh for a Year long Your Environmental Road Trip (aka YERT).

Well it is a whole year later and the YERT crew is coming home. to celebrate there is a family friendly FREE party filled with fun for everyone at the very appropriate venue of the Rachel Carson Homestead.

YERT Homecoming
Saturday August, 9, 2008, 3-7pm
Rachel Carson Homestead

Come learn about their trip to all 50 states where they interviewed over 800 people about environmentally pressing issues.
I am intrigued by this statement “We’ll also have ALL of our garbage from the year on display for you to admire or critique if you like.” – I can’t really imagine what it would be like to bring my trash along with me.
The infamous “Bag Monster” will make an appearance for the kids.

Check out the YERT blog for lots more info from their trip – inlcuding the story of the 4th YERT Member – Baby Bailey who was born on July 19th!