Last updated: November 25, 2024
Lesson Plan
Good Vibes
Cover image, Good Vibes Lesson Plan
Atlantic Center for the Arts / Young Sound Seekers
- Grade Level:
- Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade
- Subject:
- Literacy and Language Arts,Science,Social Studies
- Lesson Duration:
- 60 Minutes
- Common Core Standards:
- 5.SL.1, 5.SL.2, 5.SL.3, 5.SL.4, 6.SL.1, 6.SL.2, 6.SL.3, 6.SL.4, 7.SL.1, 7.SL.2, 7.SL.3, 7.SL.4, 8.SL.1, 8.SL.2, 8.SL.3, 8.SL.4
- State Standards:
- SC.4.N.1.1
SC.5.P.10.1
SC.6.N.2.3
SP.PK12.VI.1.2
SP.PK12.VI.2.3
SP.PK12.VI.4.2
SP.PK12.VI.4.3
SP.PK12.TP.5.3b
SP.PK12.VI.5.5
SP.PK12.VI.6.1
SP.PK12.VI.7.4
SP.PK12.US.9.1
SP.PK12.US.22.1
SP.PK12.US.13.3
SP.PK12.VI.5.6
SP.PK12.US.13.5
SS.912.P.15.6 - Thinking Skills:
- Understanding: Understand the main idea of material heard, viewed, or read. Interpret or summarize the ideas in own words. Applying: Apply an abstract idea in a concrete situation to solve a problem or relate it to a prior experience. Analyzing: Break down a concept or idea into parts and show the relationships among the parts. Evaluating: Make informed judgements about the value of ideas or materials. Use standards and criteria to support opinions and views.
Essential Question
How do different sounds affect the health of people and wildlife?
Objective
Participants will be introduced to qualities of sound that affect the health of all living beings,
such as the stressors of noise pollution, and the benefits of a balanced soundscape.
Preparation
Chose a comfortable place to gather and sit, either in seating protected from the weather or on the ground. For the discussions, a circle formation will offer an equal opportunity for all to share.
Procedure
Step A) Sound and Well-being
The facilitator will ask participants to stay silent for 60 seconds and listen to their current location. Then, gather the group into a circle to facilitate a discussion about sound and well-being.
Ask:
• What sounds are you noticing? Let’s go around our circle and share one or two sounds that you can identify in this location.
Say:
All sounds travel as waves moving through a medium like air, water, or stone. How these sounds interact with objects is called acoustics – such as the way sound waves reflect off buildings or are absorbed by trees. Sound vibrations not only hit our ears, but also our bodies. Some sounds may be unwanted and called noise, but other sounds may help us feel calm and tranquil. It’s important to remember that everyone has different sensitivities to sound. All our feelings are valid and it’s alright not to agree how we label sounds. However, there are some sounds that most of us consider calming.
Ask:
• Which sounds here help you to feel good?
• Do any of these sounds bring you positive memories?
• When you visit a park or the wilderness, what sounds do you expect to experience?
• Should we have spaces that offer us peace and tranquility?
• How can you make time in your daily life to experience sounds that help you to feel good?
Step B) Sound and Stress
The facilitator will ask participants to stay silent for 60 seconds and listen to their current location. They may move outside the circle for this listening exercise. Then, return the group to a circle formation to facilitate a discussion about sound and stress. Recall and reference any noisy man-made sounds (anthropophony) that were mentioned by participants during Step A.
Say:
We just identified several sounds that are pleasing to us. Let’s talk about the sounds we did not enjoy in the soundscape. Layers of sound are happening all the time in the outdoors. Individual sounds are easier to hear when they are not covered by other sounds. The unwanted sounds we may label as noise are usually intense, loud, and last long periods of time. They can cover up other softer sounds such as birdsong, the human voice, and sounds from the Earth like wind and water. Noise can cause stress, which affects the health of both humans and animals.
Ask:
• Which sounds at this location do you find annoying?
• How do noisy sounds make you feel? Follow up question: Why?
• When you are communicating, which sounds do you use? Examples are speech, singing, tapping, clapping, whistling, etc.
• How does noise interfere with your ability to communicate? An example is a car driving by as you are trying to speak with someone nearby.
• What sounds do animals use to communicate? Examples are tweets, rumbles, squeaks, chirps, growls, howls, barks, etc.
• Do you think noise affects animals like it affects humans? Answer is Yes. One example is that some animals leave an area because they can no longer adequately communicate to hunt, mark territory, find a mate, or create a suitable habitat.
• What are some ways that a park ranger or visitor could reduce noise pollution to encourage wild natural sounds to be heard in this space?
Say:
We’ve just discussed an important part of environmental health, which is allowing space for all the creatures of Earth to be able to communicate. The more time we have without noise pollution, the greater number of animals will be able to thrive. When we allow biodiversity to increase, species and organisms work together to maintain balance and support all life, like an intricate spider web. Humans are a part of this web and we have a responsibility to help our animal friends prosper.
Vocabulary
Habitat – The natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism. A person's usual or preferred surroundings.
Soundscape – The sounds heard in a particular location, considered as a whole.
Noise pollution – Unwanted or disturbing sound in the environment that affects the health and well-being of humans and other living organisms.
Interference – 1. the act of hindering something else 2. the phenomenon of superimposing two sound waves in a disruptive manner, as it travels along a communication channel between its source and receiver.
Biodiversity – All the different kinds of life you'll find in one area—the variety of animals, plants, fungi, and even microorganisms like bacteria that make up our natural world. Each of these species and organisms work together in ecosystems, like an intricate web, to maintain balance and support life.
Environmental health – Public health that focuses on the relationships between people and their environment; promotes human health and well-being; and fosters healthy and safe communities.
Vibration – (physics) an oscillation of the parts of a fluid or an elastic solid whose equilibrium has been disturbed, or of an electromagnetic wave. (Informal) a person's emotional state, the atmosphere of a place, or the associations of an object, as communicated to and felt by others.
Acoustics – 1. the properties or qualities of a space or building that determine how sound is transmitted in it. 2. the branch of physics concerned with the properties of sound.
Anthropophony – All sound produced by humans (anthropogenic sound). Consists of the Greek anthropos, meaning human, and the Greek phoni, meaning voice.
Additional Resources
Richard Harris,“Eavesdropping on Nature Gives Clues to Biodiversity,” National Public Radio, https://www.npr.org/2013/07/16/202435424/eavesdropping-on-nature-gives-clues-to-biodiversity https://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/429496320/listening-to-whale-migration-reveals-a-sea-of-nois e-pollution-too
Bernie Krause, The Power of Tranquility in a Very Noisy World, Paperback (New York, New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2021)
Deanna Ochs et al., eds., “The Power of Sound: The Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division Interpretive Handbook” (National Park Service Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division, 2018), https://www.nps.gov/subjects/sound/upload/PowerofSound_May2018updated-508.pdf.
Florence Williams, The Nature Fix, Paperback (New York, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 2017)
World Health Organization, Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region (WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2018), https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/383921/noise-guidelines-eng.pdf.
Related Lessons or Education Materials
Young Sound Seekers curricula are developed by:
Dr. Nathan Wolek at Stetson University, Eve Payor at Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Edith Stein at the Florida School for Deaf and Blind, with funding from the National Park Service Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division.
Additional Lesson Plans in the series:
Listen, Pair, Share
Echoes of the Past