Zip Code Soundscapes

Learning Target OR Standards & Connections
  • NGS Standard 4:  The physical and human characteristics of places
Essential Outcome(s) Level(s)
Students will…

  • identify the sounds that create a sense of place in the classroom and where they live.
  • write descriptions of the sounds or record the sounds for others to hear.
  • identify the sounds as natural sounds, human-made sounds, or sounds of humans and the environment interacting.
Adaptable to All Ages
Activity/Project
  1. Have students think about the sounds they hear every day. When you are asked to describe where you live, what do you say? Do you describe the homes, shops, and businesses? Do you describe the people? The landscape? Is there a sound that makes you think of your home? What is it? Why does it make you think of your home?
  2. Discuss how sounds define a sense of place.
  3.  Ask students to listen to the sounds around them.
  4. Give the directions: go home and walk in and around their home for a few minutes, concentrating on all of the sounds that they hear. Have them write their answers to the following questions: 
    1. What sounds do you hear?
    2. Are they natural, human-made, or the sound of humans and the environment interacting? 
    3. What sounds do you hear that you don’t usually pay attention to? 
    4. How different would your home feel if those sounds were no longer part of the soundscape? 
  5. Using Soundtrap, record various examples of the sounds they hear.
  6. Compile their thoughts and voice recordings into a project. 
  7. Come back together and have students share/showcase their results.
Extended Learning
  1. Have students generate a QR Code to their recording and post an interactive bulletin board during Parent/Teacher Conferences. 

 

Compiled by Meredith Allen, inspired by the National Geographic Soundscapes Lesson located here and adapted for use with Soundtrap.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


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