Looking back on 2024
Photo of Dark-eyed Junco: Nicholas Clements
As we near the winter solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere – short, dark days that can have their challenges – Rachel Carson’s words remind us that the beauty of nature can buoy our spirits and energize us. Even when our forests are mostly browns and grays, there is drama in their starkness, allowing us to see more clearly the resident and visiting birds, the architecture of trees, the stunning red of the native winterberries, made all the brighter alongside the neutral tones of our winter landscape.
We are deeply grateful for the progress made in 2024, especially these highlights from the year:
Strengthening Partnerships and Plans: We celebrated multiple successes with key partners, most importantly with Montgomery Parks, which owns the future museum site and has now approved the Springsong Museum Concept. This critical milestone and others allow us to move forward and finalize engineering and architectural plans for the museum! Learn more about the vision for the museum and see updated conceptual images on our website.
Growing Staff and Expertise: We have grown our team to include experts in museum management and environmental education as we begin to plan for exhibits and programming. Meet our new staff here! We also continued to deepen our understanding of Rachel Carson’s work, life, and community through historical research, which included visiting the University of Iowa to explore the papers of long-time Carson friend, colleague, and supporter, Shirley Briggs.
Launching Spring:Story: Created in partnership with VoxPop, our community story project on Carson was launched this summer and has already received inspirational stories from world-renowned writers, scientists, actors, politicians, and more. This project will not only archive important stories, it will help educate people about Carson’s impact. Each week we post these reflections on Facebook, Instagram, and X. We hope you enjoy the video (above) with a few early contributors to the project-- including two Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists-- created by the wonderful Stacy Jannis. Please contribute your own story on our Spring:Story page.
Building Awareness: In addition to the Spring:Story project, we have been working to spread the word about Rachel Carson and the museum through multiple podcasts and earned media, including an article in Bethesda Magazine and three features in Pathways available on our updates page. Springsong was also represented on multiple panels and speaker series including at the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums annual conference and Montgomery History's History Conversations program.
Updated Website: We have moved from our initial website to our 2.0 version. The new site features a flowing stream, photos of birds, boulders, and more from the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River, along which Springsong will be located. We will continue to develop the new website with the goal of not only providing information on Carson and on the museum, but inspiring the wonder that was foundational to all of Carson’s work.
This progress (and much more we couldn't fit here!) is thanks to the generous support of our Springsong community. We look forward to 2025, knowing that it will likely prove to be an even more momentous year than this one. Thank you for being a vital part of this effort to create a world-class museum inspired by the life and legacy of Rachel Carson that will spark wonder in our natural world, nurture connection, celebrate courage, and catalyze the next generation of environmental stewards and leaders.