Connect

Return to or choose a sit spot. Close your eyes and tune into your sense of hearing. How many different sounds do you hear? If desired, map your sounds in your nature notebook. Make a mark in the middle to represent yourself. Place words, images, or symbols to represent the locations of sounds that you hear. 

Watch Rachel Feerick, Riveredge Nature Center’s Scientist in Residence at the West Bend School District, to see how she creates her sound map.

Explore

In your Nature Notebook, record the date, time, temperature and weather. Whether this is your first time at your sit spot for your fiftieth time, there are always “new” sounds to explore. In spring there are dozens of sounds that have been absent over the long winter so our ears pick up on these sounds. 

Challenge yourself to the following: 

• Listen for a specific bird or amphibian call (Learn frog calls here) 
• Listen for the loudest or quietest sound you can hear? Can you hear any sounds that are close by, far away?
• How many different sounds can you hear in the next minute?
• Listen to the sound your feet make when stepping on various surfaces.  How can you walk really loud?  How can you walk really quiet?

Reflect: If you have been to this spot before, what aren’t you hearing right now that you thought you might? How have the sounds of this spot changed over time? How do the sounds you hear in this spot vary at different times throughout the day? 

Engage

Listen to soundscapes that are different than those you are used to. Check out this pond soundscape captured in southeast Wisconsin on April 7, 2020:

Here are sounds from the streets of New York City:  

What did you notice about what you heard? What did it make you wonder? Did it remind you of anything? How is what you heard similar or different to what you experience where you live? 

Learn more about sound energy with Snapshot Science: 

Reflect on what you heard during your outdoor adventures and from the videos you watched. Consider sharing your thoughts with a friend or loved one or leave a comment below with your reflections!