Rachel Carson: Nature's Guardian

Rachel Carson Nature’s Guardian is an expository nonfiction text about zoologist Rachel Carson and her love for living things in the oceans. It covers topics such as pests and pesticides, her published book Silent Spring, and today’s environmental movement. The text includes a section on marine biologist Sylvia Earle. Readers gain information from text and graphics. Multiple scientists and their work are highlighted in the text. A two-page experiment written in third person procedural language invites students to explore the effects of acid rainfall on buildings and statues.

Rachel Carson Nature’s Guardian is divided into sections with some subsections. A range of illustrations are used which add information and support the reader’s interpretation of the text, including labeled photos. Many fact boxes and sidebars are used to provide students with additional learning opportunities. Periods, commas, quotation marks, and question marks are used. A table of contents, a glossary, and an index support the reader.

Sentences structures and lengths vary with a wide variety of parts of speech. A full range of plurals and compound words are used. Sentences contain connectives, possessives, contractions, prepositional phrases, and verbs with inflection endings. Glossary words are bold faced throughout the text. Some words appear in the vocabulary of mature language users.

This title is from the Science Readers series from Teacher Created Materials. Build literacy skills and science content knowledge with high-interest, appropriately levelled information texts.