Activity
Even if you are outside a lot of the time, many of us don’t stop very often to just listen to the world around you in a purposeful way. A sound map is a cool way to catalog the sounds of your environment.
You will need:
- Markers, crayons or colored pencils
- A piece of paper.
To make your sound map: This can be done on your own or with a friend
- Find a place anywhere in your house, front step, backyard, park, or anywhere outside and sit comfortably.
- Sit and listen to the world around you. Focus on hearing all of the sounds for a minute or two before you begin to draw what you hear.
- Draw a map of the sounds you hear. What is the sound? Where is it coming from?
- Share your map with your friend and compare what you each heard.
Questions to think about:
- What kinds of things did you hear?
- Would you have heard them if you weren’t focusing on listening?
- Were there sounds you didn’t expect to hear?
- What made it difficult to listen to the world around you?
- How would this change if you did it at a different time? Different place in your house?
- How important is hearing to animals?
- Is it more important for predators or prey?
