2.1 Where is sound in our environment?

By Debra Hall and Crystal Patillo

Provided by Kenan Fellows Program.

Sound is created by vibrating objects that produce sound waves. These waves travel through a medium and are received by our ears, which, along with our brains, process the information into sound and create meaning.

Learning outcomes

The learner will be able to:

• identify a variety of sounds in the environment.
• discuss the sounds using appropriate terminology.
• identify whether sounds are a product of human production or the natural environment.
• identify the purposes for sounds such as communication.

Teaching planning

Time required

One 60-minute lesson

Materials needed

• science notebooks
• drawing paper
• soundscape recordings

Technology resources

• computer with speakers and recording software such as Raven Lite (available for free from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology), or other recording device with playback ability
• optional: data projector

Pre-activities

The teacher should visit the Soundscapes section of the Wild Music website before beginning this lesson. In the Build a Soundscape section, you can create soundscapes from a small variety of options. Because this lesson asks you to create some of your own soundscapes and ask students to predict what sounds they would expect to hear in that particular environment before you play it aloud, you will need to decide if you want to use Wild Music to create your own soundscapes or if you want to record your own soundscapes.

Activities

This lesson uses the 5E instructional model, which includes five phases: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate.

Engage

Ask students what types of sounds they would expect to hear outside. Do a Think-Pair-Share activity in which students generate a list of sounds they might expect to hear. First the student will think on his/her own, then share ideas with a partner, and then share ideas as a class.

Explore

The students will take a sound walk around the outside of the school to aurally observe their environment. They will silently pause at several locations and close their eyes to concentrate on listening and process what they hear. Allow time for students to stop and record their observations in their science notebooks. The teacher should carry a recording device to record the sounds encountered on the walk.

Explain

Back inside, the students will discuss the sounds they heard in small groups. Each student volunteers a sound and identifies its source. They should also share their observations about the sound using musical terminology when appropriate. Their observations should include properties such as loud/soft (dynamics), far away/near, long/short (duration), high/low (pitch), fast/slow (tempo), made by a machine, etc.

The teacher should discuss with the students how these sounds create a soundscape. Using the soundscapes you created at the Wild Music website or on your own, ask students to predict what sounds they would expect to hear in that soundscape environment. For example, in a recording of a forest, one might hear birds singing, wind blowing, tree limbs falling, leaves rustling, chainsaw running, etc.

Using the observations from their science notebooks, the students will create a visual soundscape to represent what they heard during the sound walk on drawing paper.

Once their drawings are complete, the students will share some of their sounds using description or pantomime, but will not actually name the object. Their classmates will guess what sound is being described. The teacher might begin by modeling an example, such as the wind, by fluttering her or his hands or using a phrase like “I blow gently through the leaves.” The various descriptions will create an illustrative view of how each individual interprets sound.

The students will discuss how these sounds relate to music. As a group, compare the themes of “the music of nature” and “the nature of music.” The teacher will facilitate how the soundscape creates musical texture. Students will compare and contrast texture in music with texture in visual art.

Elaborate

The teacher will play back parts of the sound walk that was recorded. Students will compare their artistic depictions to the actual sounds they heard. Using sticky notes the teacher will help the students create a Hear-Think-Wonder chart to identify sounds that they may not have heard the first time. They will write what sounds they think they heard, guess what possibly made that sound, and record any questions they have or what puzzles them about the sound. See the following example.

Hear-Think-Wonder chart: Sound

Hear	Think	Wonder
tweet tweet	a bird (maybe a cardinal)	When does a bird sing?
beep	truck	What makes horn noises sound different?

Evaluate

Student will identify sounds in the environment as natural or man-made and identify reasons for sound (such as communication). The student will also use appropriate terminology to describe these sounds such as pitch, dynamics, tempo, and duration. Select a variety of sounds from your sound walk and soundscape recordings for this assessment.

Critical vocabulary

sound

a particular auditory impression

environment

the area in which something exists or lives; the totality of surrounding conditions

natural

existing in or in conformity with nature or the observable world

human-made

made by humans rather than occurring in nature

dynamics

degrees of loudness

piano

soft

forte

loud

pitch

the highness or lowness of a tone, as determined by the frequency of vibrations per second

duration

amount of time or a particular time interval

tempo

the speed of music

texture

in music, the number of simultaneous sounding lines; the manner in which horizontal pitch sequences are organized

texture

in visual art, an element of art that is the way an object feels or looks like it feels

soundscape

sound or combination of sounds that forms or arises from an environment (e.g. natural sounds, animal vocalizations, sounds of weather, natural and environmental element sounds created by humans)

• Next: How can we represent sounds that are in the environment?

National Standards

In addition to meeting objectives of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, this lesson plan addresses the following national standards.

Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry

• Understanding about scientific inquiry.
• Employ simple equipment and tools to gather data and extend the senses.

Content Standard E: Science and Technology

• Abilities to distinguish between natural objects and objects made by humans.

Contents: BioMusic

Section 2: Fourth and fifth grade lessons

• Next: How can we represent sounds that are in the environment?

(Image source. More about the photograph)

Learn more

• Wild Music In this exhibition about the sounds and songs of life, explorers can build their own soundscapes, investigate unique sounds from animals, and play with vibrations.
• Visible Thinking The Hear-Think-Wonder chart in this lesson was adapted from the Think-Pair-Share and Think-Puzzle-Wonder routines described on the Visible Thinking website. Visit this resource to find many other strategies including understanding routines, fairness routines, creativity routines, and truthfulness routines.

Related topics

• Search LEARN NC for more resources on arts, science, and sound.

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