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A Sound
Environment
Subject Area
This activity
is designed to avoid traditional curriculum distinctions. Accordingly
it is suggested that this part of the outline be taken as a suggestion
only. Since sound is one of our most important senses, it should
be considered every time any of the other senses are addressed.
This activity can be applied in any context where an understanding
of sound is important. As a result, it could be part of the SEN3G
Optional Unit on Noise Pollution, SEN4A Optional Unit on Environmental
Health Hazards, SPH4A and SPA4G. It is equally important that
this activity be considered across the curriculum. For example,
it is suitable in any level of English at which poetry is to be
studied, the drama or theater arts curricula, physical and health
education, or visual arts.
Learning
Outcomes
Teaching,
learning and evaluation will focus on the student's ability to:
- Research
and assess the type of sound in the school and local environments;
- Articulate
an understanding of the impact of sound on him/herself;
- Analyze
his/her own sound environment and speculate on the impact of
sound on his/her life.
Classroom
Development
This activity
is based mainly on a series of student work sheets with which
students will be directed to encounter the sounds that form the
background hum of their lives.
Acoustic
Environment
If a loud
sound is made at a time it is not expected, it will nicely introduce
the class to the impact of sound and its function. Make a loud
noise which will not have been anticipated by your class. Once
the exclamations of shock die down, ask them to suppose the value
of an apprehension of sound to our species. What is the function
of sound in human existence? Why do you think that humans developed
hearing? It allows an individual to become aware of things which
are not in his or her field of sight.
Ask students
what they would do when they hear a car engine (very close), a
train horn, a telephone ring, a door bell. You know what to do.
Previous experience has you better trained than you may think.
What is the value of this training?
- The first
step of this activity is probably to draw upon the existing
knowledge that the students have about sound. This knowledge
is unpredictable and most always insightful. Have students,
in groups of 3-5, define the following terms based on their
existing knowledge, experience and imagination: sound, sound-scape,
sound environment, ambient noise, background noise, sound absorption
characteristics, human-made versus natural sound, and sound
awareness. Make sure that the responses are written, rather
than merely discussed orally.
- If adequate
answers are given, students can move onto the next step of the
activity, otherwise, have students use the library's resources
to define these terms. Physics or music teachers can be called
upon at this point to explain these terms if team teaching is
popular in your school.
- Remind
students that the awareness of sound should not be confined
to the music classroom. Sound exists everywhere. The application
of hearing and the integration of sound in our environment is
basic to our common existence. Sound transcends age, race, culture,
and religion, though its interpretation varies. The sense of
hearing is usually overlooked by sight and the other senses.
The media of mass communication mostly provide visual experiences,
but without the soundtrack they become mere shadows of the whole
picture. The more the senses are tuned, the better an overview
and an understanding of our lives.
- Within
this age of political correctness and issues of gender equality
we question how words are used. What about words like "overlooked"
and "overview." Can these words not constitute sense
discrimination? Our world needs to be heard, touched, tasted,
and smelled as well as seen. As we live in a multicultural society,
we should also live in a multi-sensual world.
Direct a
discussion on the theme of sense discrimination, a situation in
which one sense dominates, occupying the majority of an individual's
conscious sensory input. These questions are useful to ask both
before and after the worksheets have been completed, so that students
can gauge what they have experienced in the activity. Remind students
to remember what they say this time through, because you'll ask
them the same questions later.
Why do we
accept this situation?
- In what
contexts would other senses dominate?
- Might
different living situations (urban, suburban, rural, rustic)
require a different balance of the senses?
- What
balance of senses is necessary for your life? Why?
Options
Have visually
disabled people come into class and talk about the way that they
rely on sound and their hearing mechanism to navigate in a sighted
world. There are differences in how sound is perceived between
people who have had a visual impairment from birth and who lost
sight later in life.
Response/Discussion
In whatever
class journals are kept, direct students to write on the following
topics:
- Discuss
"awareness of sound in the environment." What does
this phrase mean to you, and what value might it have in society?
- Discuss
the harmful effects of sound.
- How can
the concepts of sound, music, and physics be connected?
- How might
the concepts of sound and knowledge be connected?
Timing
Most work
should be done out of class time.
- One period
of 50-80 min is required for steps one and two.
Cross-disciplinary
Links
This activity
is best linked between the courses outlined in Subject Area
above. Any curriculum in which sound, the senses, or aural
pollution are studied could be linked through this activity. A
great deal of mileage can be made by linking a unit on sound in
a Physics class with a poetry unit in an English class.
Resources
Schafer,
R. Murray. A Sound Education: 100 exercises in listening and sound-making.
Indian River, Ontario: Arcana Editions, 1992.
Schafer,
R. Murray. The Tuning of the World. Toronto: McClel- land and
Stewart, 1977. R. Murray Schafer is one of Canada's most prominent
composers.
Student
Activities
A
Sound Environment
When a walking
path becomes familiar, some features start to be taken for granted.
Walking along a different route provides not only something different
to look at, but something different to listen to. It represents
a change in acoustic environment. If you change the path along
which your life travels, socially, economically, geographically,
or intellectually, how will your acoustic environment change?
Analyzing
Your Sound Environment
If you are
walking in a hallway and clap your hands, the sound you hear is
shaped by the sound absorption characteristics of the constructions.
The length of time it takes for you to hear the reflection is
dependent on the length of the hall. This exercise of equating
distance to sound reflection is best done outside where one can
make a sound and count how long it takes for the reflection to
return. Since sound travels at approximately 344 m/s, a reflection
returning in one second gives an approximate distance of 172 m
(344/2).
- Walk
around your school and local environment and find ten different
sound environments in each. List them:
- Listen
to the sounds on the walk home from school.
- What
are making the sounds?
- Are the
sounds pleasant? Explain why you think that the sound is pleasant
or unpleasant.
- Can you
hear a sound being made in one place and hear a reflection in
another? That is, do you hear sounds bouncing off buildings
or echoes of sounds coming from directions where you are not
expecting to hear sounds?
- How does
the ground that you are walking on change the way your shoes
or boots sound?
- How many
of these sounds that you hear make you aware of things in your
neighbourhood that you did not know existed? (The large number
of air conditioners, dogs, cats, birds, lights, transformers
on poles, traffic lights changing colour, water flowing in the
sewers).
- Bring
your response sheet back to class for discussion.
- An easy
way to hear the effect of your surroundings on the way sound
sounds (the characteristics) is to go into the bathroom and
talk or make any sound. Then remove the towels that are hanging
up and open the shower curtains. Now make the same sounds and
describe the difference in the space below.
Sound(s)
made:
Describe
the difference(s) between the sounds made with the towels and
curtains, and without.
Mall Listening
- Go to
a mall or restaurant and listen to the sounds. Try to ignore
the sound in the foreground and focus on the ones in the background.
Write down the name of the mall you visited, and the date and
the time of your visit.
- List
the sounds that you hear, and put an asterisk next to the ones
that you've never noticed before.
- What
effect do these background sounds have on the other sounds that
you hear?
- How would
the place (mall or restaurant) without this sound(s)
- Explain
why you think that background sounds help or hinder communication
- Do you
think that background sounds increase or decrease privacy? Support
your answer.
- What
is the difference between eating a meal with a group of people
with and without background music?
- Are you
more conscious of the sounds that you make when you eat if there
is background music? Why?
- What
do you think are the reasons for piped music and waterfalls
in restaurants and shopping areas?
- How do
the types of eating utensils affect the background noise? (Take
notice of whether you are eating on a styrofoam, cardboard,
paper, ceramic, glass or plastic food containers and what you
are using to eat the food: hands, fingers, chopsticks, plastics
cutlery, metal cutlery, silver cutlery).
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