2019 Essay Contest Finalist

Entry by Evelyn Rousseau

Life-Changing Women

Imagine a world where Apollo 13 never made it back home. Or where we had no idea how bad pesticides really were. What if we never understood the danger our wildlife faced? These life-changing discoveries were made by women. The same women who have been kept out of the geosciences!

Achieving her dream was never easy, but Kathrine Johnson never let anyone hold her back. She was kept out of her local high school because she was black. Eventually, her family saved enough and moved. In 1958 NASA began hiring a more diverse community, and Johnson applied. When Apollo 13 was launched, she was one of the faces behind the operation, and when things went wrong, Johnson was the one who got it back to earth. If it wasn’t for her, history would not be the same.

Rachel Carson loved the outdoors, but she noticed a change. Animals were going extinct, plants were dying and the earth was polluted. So what did she do? She wrote a book to publicize the problems happening. She wrote many books and changed the minds of people about the world around us.

Was it the stuffed chimp that her parents gave her as a child? Or just her natural love of animals that sparked Jane Goodall’s love of chimpanzees? When it was time to go to college, it was simply too much money. After years of working, Goodall finally attended the University of Cambridge. After college, she moved to Tanzania and spent the next 45 years studying and saving chimps. She showed the world that they were not scary animals, but extremely intelligent.

There is no doubt that women have made an impact in geoscience. If more women aren’t encouraged to become geoscientists, who knows what life-changing discoveries we could miss?

Works Cited

“9 Facts about Silent Spring Author Rachel Carson.” 9 Facts about ‘Silent Spring’ Author Rachel Carson | Mental Floss, 8 Aug. 2017, mentalfloss.com/article/502504/9-facts-about-silent-spring-author-rachel-carson.

Becker, Helaine, and Dow Phumiruk. Counting on Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Put Astronauts on the Moon. Macmillan Children’s Books, 2019.

Edwards, Roberta, and John O’Brien. Who Is Jane Goodall? Scholastic Inc., 2016. Koczela, Andrea. “Ten Facts You Should Know about Jane Goodall.” Our Blog, blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/ten-facts-you-should-know-about-jane-goodall#targetT ext=Jane Goodall is the world’s, Messenger of Peace in 2002.

Kudlinski, Kathleen V., and Ted Lewin. Rachel Carson: Pioneer of Ecology. Puffin Books, 1989.

“National Science Foundation - Where Discoveries Begin.” US NSF - GEO - Strategies for Developing a Diversity Program, www.nsf.gov/geo/diversity/geo_diversity_strategy_document_jan_01.jsp.