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Rachel Carson, a biologist and author of silent spring, conducted much of her writing and pesticide studies along the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River in Silver Spring.

Her work is credited in part with the impetus for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Now, neighbors in the Woodmore section of Silver Spring, Montgomery Parks and Carson experts have formed a partnership to Springsong Museum to spread her sense of wonder about the natural world among museum visitors.

“The goal is to connect community and nature through the words and wisdom of Rachel Carson. It is not just a museum that tells its story,” said Rebecca Henson, founder and executive director and Silver Spring resident.

The idea is to use Carson’s key tenet about the connection between people and their world to help visitors gain knowledge about their environment, Henson explains. “We all have a responsibility to learn about science,” she said.

The museum will house Carson’s letters and essays, jewelry and examples of her writing as a child when she learned cursive. Some books show how Carson was involved in the search for a cure for her breast cancer. A certificate showing that she has paid off her student loans will also be on display.

Some of the information comes from Montgomery County resident Linda Lear, author of Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature. Other displays will come from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where Carson worked.

A Montgomery Blair High School AP environmental science teacher who looks forward to taking her students on field trips there is involved, Henson said.

It is expected that the museum will also include information about communities that lived in the area, including the Nacotchtank/Anacostan peoples, mill owners and workers, and the Black community of Stewart Lane Chapel/Burnt Mills.

The museum is expected to open in two and a half years once plans are finalized, fundraising goals are met and construction is completed. The property along Route 29 is owned by Montgomery Parks, which is working out terms for a long-term lease for the museum, according to Henson.

The “Spring” part of the museum’s name comes from Silver Spring, and the “Song” part refers to “the birds and the frogs, the sounds of spring that remind us that life is still here and coming back Henson said.

The word “quiet” in Carson’s book, Silent springreferred to an absence of bird sounds when people aren’t paying attention to the word around them, she said.

Carson spent much of her adult life in the Silver Spring area and wrote most of her books there. She was a board member of what is now Nature Forward in Chevy Chase.

Henson works with a group of approximately 20 volunteers and several full-time and part-time employees. The expected cost for the museum is $9 million. Maryland awarded the program $1.25 million. There will be no entrance fee.

According to the museum’s website, Carson was “a National Book Award-winning author, biologist and native of Montgomery County who is often considered the ‘mother of the modern environmental movement.’ Her first three books– Under the sea breeze (1941), The sea around us (1951), and The edge of the sea (1955) – celebrated the wonders of the natural world, especially the oceans.”