Grades 2-3

Curriculum Module for Elementary Grades 2-3

UBEATS Module 2/3 (1) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Table of Contents

Physical Science page

1: How does sound travel? 3

2: What are pitch and frequency? 7

3: How is sound affected by different mediums? 11

Life Science

1: How do we hear? 17

2: Can we determine how well other animals hear? 21

3: do animals make music? 25

4: How does nature inspire human music making? 29

5: How can we describe animal sounds? 31

6: How do birds produce sounds? 35

7: What is the value of a signature sound? 39

8: How do animals communicate using tools? 41

9: Why do birds sing? 45

10: do animals copy sounds? 49

11: How can humans imitate the sounds of animals? 53

12: How do animals compete with man-made sounds? 57

13: How do animal songs influence human music? 61

14: Can you make a symphony of sounds? 65

UBEATS Module 2/3 (2) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Physical Science 1: How Does Sound Travel?

Introduction: Sound travels through waves of energy. The length and speed of the waves affect the sound’s frequency and amplitude. Prior to this activity, students should understand that sound is a

Learning Outcomes: The learner will form of energy that travels in waves. Sound energy is most readily explain how sound travels. The learner recognized by the human senses in the form of vibrations. Vibrations will be able to describe how frequency can be thought of the as the end result of the energy of sound and amplitude of sound are depicted in traveling through matter in waves. The wave describes how the sound waves. energy changes in direction and intensity over time. The oscillation of matter back and forth is described as a vibration. The matter being

Science Process Skills: Observation, oscillated can be a gas, liquid or solid, though it is most readily Communication, Measurement, Reflection visible to the human eye in liquids or pliable solids (like Oobleck). Students should understand that when a vibration travels through the

Time: Forty-five minutes air and into the ear canal it vibrates the eardrum. Nerves in the ear translate these vibrations into signals that our brain can understand

Materials: Subwoofer or speaker, as sounds. Students should also understand that sound waves are Oobleck mixture, thin metal sheet, paper vibrating all parts of our body all of the time, only some of them towels, journals, pencils, tuning forks, are of the quality that we can feel directly with our body or interpret shallow dishes of water with our hearing senses as sounds. In this lesson, students will be introduced to the basic physical science principles of how sound travels through solids, liquids, and gases.

Curriculum Alignment:

National Science Standards Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate Content Standard A: Abilities necessary E to do scientific inquiry 5 • Understanding about scientific inquiry Engage: • Employ simple equipment and tools to Most teachers are familiar with Oobleck, a non- gather data and extend the senses Newtonian colloid made by mixing cornstarch Content Standard B: Physical Science and water. Mix some Oobleck prior to the class. • Position and motion of objects Show students the Oobleck and allow them • Sound is produced by vibrating to explore the material using their senses. Have students share their objects, the pitch of the sound can observations as a group. be varied by changing the rate of vibration Explore: Obtain a subwoofer or radio with a large National Music Standards speaker and turn it on its side. Pour some of Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and the Oobleck into onto a thin metal sheet placed describing music on top of the subwoofer. Play music loudly and Goal 8: Understanding relationships watch the Oobleck dance! Ask students, what is making the Oobleck move? between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts For a video demonstration of ‘Dancing Oobleck,’ go to: http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=Yp1wUodQgqQ

UBEATS Module 2/3 (3) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Explain: 1. Inform students that as biomusicians it is important to know about sound and the study of sound. Encourage students to share their ideas of how the Oobleck is moving in the pan. 2. Explain to students that sound travels in waves called sound waves (see Concepts and Science Process Skills). These waves cause vibrations (see Concepts and Science Process Skills), which are seen in the Oobleck as it moves up and down. All sounds cause vibrations. Allow students to try hitting a tuning fork on the edge of their desk, then dipping it in water. This will allow students to see the waves as they are dispersed through the water as the sound energy is transferred from the solid tuning fork to the liquid water. 3. Ask students what they think will happen with the Oobleck if the music is changed. Explain to students that you will try a few different changes in the music. Play music with heavy bass, then heavy treble. Also change the dynamics, so that the music is played both loud and soft. Encourage students to keep a chart in their science notebooks documenting their observations of the Oobleck. Students can either write a description of the Oobleck’s movement or draw a picture. Such a chart might look like the following:

observations of the Oobleck Heavy Bass Heavy Treble

Soft Music

Loud Music

Elaborate: Play the music for students and have them record their observations. Explain to students that how loud or how soft the music is can be referred to as amplitude (see Concepts and Science Process Skills) and dynamics (see Concepts and Science Process Skills). The amplitude roughly describes how much energy the sound waves have. Explain to students that when two different disciplines combine or work together, such as music and science, they sometimes have different terms for the same phenomenon. In this instance, amplitude is a scientific term referring to the loudness or softness of a sound. In music, the loud/soft characteristic is known as dynamics. Amplitude and dynamics both refer to the loud/soft characteristic.

Have students share what they notice about the Oobleck as the music changes. Are there differences in the patterns/movements of the Oobleck? Does it move more for one type of music than another? (This will also work with a balloon stretched over the top of an oatmeal container. Put some rice on top of the balloon and hold the open bottom of the container over the speaker if concerned about using Oobleck in the classroom. If time permits, have students compare and contrast how the Oobleck and rice move to loud bass, loud treble, quiet bass, and quiet treble music.)

Evaluate: 1. Play music at different volumes. Ask students to describe the amplitude/dynamics as loud or soft. 2. Examine student notebooks to check their descriptions and drawings of the Oobleck’s movement for accuracy.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (4) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Physical Science 1: resources

Vocabulary: Amplitude: A scientific term describing the loudness or softness of a sound.

Dynamics: A musical term describing the loudness or softness of a sound.

Sound wave: A description of how sound energy moves through matter, creating an audible sensation.

Vibration: The rapid oscillation of molecules by energy. Some vibrations can be sensed by sight, touch, or hearing.

Websites: Dancing Oobleck http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp1wUodQgqQ

UBEATS Module 2/3 (5) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home UBEATS Module 2/3 (6) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Physical Science 2: What are pitch and frequency?

Introduction: Sound travels through waves of energy. The length and speed of the waves affect the sound’s frequency and pitch. The term frequency (see Concepts and Science Process Skills) refers to how many waves occur in a given period of time. When the oscillation of sound Learning Outcomes: The learner waves increase in a given time period, the result is called a higher will be able to describe what affects the frequency. Pitch (see Concepts and Science Process Skills) refers to how frequency and pitch of sound. the auditory senses perceive the frequency of a sound wave. That is, the higher the frequency the more the waves that occur in a given time Science Process Skills: Observation, period, and therefore the higher the pitch. Communication, Measurement, Reflection

Time: Forty-five minutes

Materials: Textbooks, pencils (two per Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate student), rubber bands, journals, Pitch and Frequency Data sheets 5E Engage: Inform students that they are going to enter a ‘hearing contest’ to see how well they can hear compared to other animals. Engage the whole Curriculum Alignment: class in testing their hearing versus a mosquito at http://www.wildmusic.org/en/aboutsound/mosquito. Afterward, National Science Education Standards show students how human hearing compares to the other animals shared on the site. What did students notice about their own abilities Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to to hear? Can students identify that some animals can perceive higher do scientific inquiry pitches than others? • Understanding about scientific inquiry • Employ simple equipment and tools to gather data and extend the senses ExplorE: 1. Have each student stretch a rubber band Content Standard B: Physical Science around a textbook and place two pencils (far • Position and motion of objects apart) under the rubber band. They will then • Sound is produced by vibrating objects, take turns plucking the rubber band. Allow the pitch of the sound can be varied by students to listen both to the pitch of the sound and to watch the changing the rate of vibration rubber band vibrate. The students should be able to equate the visible frequency of the vibration with the changing higher/lower pitch. National Music Standards 2. Ask students to share if they think sound can change, and how they think it will change. What will happen if they move the pencils Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and closer together and pluck the rubber band? Ask students to write their describing music prediction in their science journals. They should then try plucking the Goal 8: Understanding relationships band after moving the pencils closer together. Students should between music, the other arts, and discover that the shorter the distance between the pencils, the higher disciplines outside the arts the pitch of the sound (and the higher the frequency). They can then write the actual results in their science journals. 3. Ask students why they thought the pitch changed when the pencils were moved closer together.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (7) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Explain: Ask students to share their observations. Did the speed of the vibrations change when the pencils were moved? How did the speed of the vibrations change the pitch of the sounds heard?

Explain to students that faster vibrations cause higher-pitched sounds and slower vibrations cause lower-pitched sounds. The longer the distance a sound vibration has to travel, the lower the pitch will be. The shorter the distance a sound vibration has to travel, the higher the pitch will be. Pressing the string against the fret board of a guitar, or in this case, the pencils, shortens the length of the part of the string that can vibrate. Thus, the vibrations have a shorter distance to travel, can oscillate faster, and that is why the sound has a higher pitch. If available, bring in a guitar and demonstrate for students how pressing strings against the fret board changes the pitch of the sounds and the speed of the vibrations.

High Pitch Low Pitch

Elaborate: 1. Ask students to use their metric rulers to further examine the relationship between pitch and frequency. Give each student a copy of the data sheet on measuring pitch and frequency from the website http://www.teachengineering.org (see example at the end of this lesson and the Websites section of this lesson for a direct link to this worksheet). 2. Using their rulers, ask each student to work with a partner to test hitting or smacking the ruler and measuring the number of vibrations for each of the lengths tested. How do the data that students record correspond to the movement of the Oobleck (from Physical Science 1), as well as to the movement of the pencils on the textbook ‘guitar’? Students should see the same results – the higher the pitch, the more frequent the vibrations; the lower the pitch, the less frequent the vibrations.

Evaluate: 1. Check student data sheets for accuracy. 2. Ask students to explain in their science journals how the rate of vibrations and the pitch of a sound are related.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (8) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Physical Science 2: resources

Vocabulary Frequency: The number of cycles (or oscillations) of a sound wave per second; the higher the frequency, the higher the pitch. This is the scientific measurement of pitch.

Pitch: The highness or lowness of a sound as perceived by the auditory senses.

Websites The Mosquito activity at Wild Music http://www.wildmusic.org/en/aboutsound/mosquito

Worksheet (next page) Pitch Data Sheet http://www.teachengineering.com/collection/cub_/activities/cub_energy2/ cub_energy2_lesson05_activity3_worksheet.pdf

UBEATS Module 2/3 (9) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Name: ______Date: ______

Pitch and Frequency Worksheet

1. Hold the ruler tightly to the table and hit the other end. Observe how the number of vibrations changes if you change how much the ruler extends past the table edge.

2. Write the number of seconds the ruler vibrates in the table below and graph your data.

Distance ruler beyond table edge Number of vibrations (in cms or inches) (How many seconds does the ruler vibrate?) N umber of vibrations (in seconds)

Distance of ruler beyond table edge (in cms or inches)

3. What happens to the frequency and pitch of the sound the ruler makes as you extend more of it off the table edge?

______

4. What type of pitch? High or Low?

______

______

UBEATS Module 2/3 (10) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Physical Science 3: How is sound affected by different mediums?

Introduction: Sound wave travel is also affected by the medium through which it travels; sound waves do not travel the same way through solids, liquids, or gases.

In this lesson, students will examine how the waves and resulting Learning Outcomes: The learners will vibrations are affected by the medium through which sound travels. identify three states of matter: solid, liquid, All sound waves need a material through which energy (vibrations) is and gas. The learner will explain how transferred. Sound waves travel at the fastest speed through solids, sound waves travel differently through then liquids, and finally the slowest through gases. This is because the each of the three states. particles of a solid are close together, making it easy for the sound wave to transfer energy from one particle to the next. In a gas, the particles are Science Process Skills: Observe, spread farther apart, taking longer for the energy from the sound wave to Classify, Measure reach from one particle to another. Time: Two one-hour sessions

Materials: Drum, paper clips, tuning fork, basin of water, rubber band string between two pegs or nails, metal fork and Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate spoon, steel yardstick or ruler, musical instruments or CD, six copies of the 5E Sound Waves Seen Activity Sheet for each Engage: student (see Resources section), windup Explain to students that they will be looking clocks (one per set of partners), Zip-loc at how sound waves travel through different baggies, string, plastic cups objects and mediums at six lab stations. Explain to the students that medium (see Concepts and Science Process Skills) refers to form/phase of matter through which sound waves travel: a solid, a liquid, or a gas. As they explore the different sound Curriculum Alignment: waves created at the different stations, students will create a booklet of what they discover. National Science Education Standards

Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to ExplorE: do scientific inquiry Adapted from Discovery Education at http://school. • Understanding about scientific inquiry discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/programs/ • Employ simple equipment and tools to soundwaves/ gather data and extend the senses 1. Pass out the Sound Waves Seen activity sheets to students. There is space for students to draw a diagram of the lab station Content Standard B: Physical Science activity. Students should illustrate the materials used in each lab activity • Position and motion of objects. and describe what is happening in the activity by answering the • Sound is produced by vibrating objects, following questions: the pitch of the sound can be varied by a. What do you see? changing the rate of vibration b. What do you hear? c. What is the source of the vibration? National Music Standards d. In what type of medium (i.e., solid, liquid, or gas) is the Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and wave traveling? describing music e. In what direction does the wave appear to travel? Goal 8: Understanding relationships f. What happens to the medium as the wave meets it (e.g., paper clips between music, the other arts, and bounce, fingers vibrate when touching skin near vocal cords)? disciplines outside the arts continued

UBEATS Module 2/3 (11) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home 2. Next, walk through one lab activity with the class and model how to complete the observation sheets. Tell students that all sounds in these labs have an energy Lab Station #1: source that creates the vibrations that travel through the medium. Also, emphasize that an energy source is needed for all sound waves and the resulting vibrations. Drum with paper clips on the top. Place activity cards at each lab station that clearly define student procedures for (This can be made with wrapping each lab as listed to the left and provided in the Resources section of this lesson. paper over a coffee can if you 3. Now organize the class into small groups and have them rotate through each of the don‘t have a real drum available.) lab stations, completing an observation sheet at each station. Allow 10 to 15 Students should tap on the drum minutes for each lab activity. Make sure students clean up the materials at each and observe what happens to the station after their observation so that each group will be able to set up the materials paper clips. What do you see? appropriately. What do you hear?

Explain: Engage the students in a class discussion about their Lab Station #2: observations. Guide the students through these questions: Touch side of your throat and say a. What are the varieties of mediums through which the ahh. What do you feel as you say waves traveled? (Explain to students that mediums ahh? What do you hear? are required to carry sound waves) b. Which waves could you hear in the lab and which could you not? c. Where did the waves travel? (Explain that all waves continued to move outward Lab Station #3: from source of sound until they lose intensity or until they hit an object of a different density, especially a solid, and change direction. For example, the Tuning fork in water. Gently strike water waves in the pan hit the edges of the pan and bounced back). Elicit the tuning fork on the pad and students’ ideas about real-world examples of this – for example, echoes. then place it in the water. Describe what you observe. What do you Remind students that a medium must be present to carry the vibrations that the ear see? What do you hear? can detect. In outer space (a vacuum), sound will not travel, therefore it cannot be heard in outer space.

Lab Station #4: Animals have both physical and behavioral adaptations that influence how they use Rubber band strung between two mediums to make and hear sounds; for example, a whale must be able to send its pegs or nails. Pluck the rubber song through miles of water. Similar to bats, whales use a type of echolocation to band. What do you see? What do hear songs and to communicate with one another. However, because sound travels you hear? easier through liquids than through gases, due to the particles being closer together, the whale song can be heard from greater distances than if whale sounds were transmitted through the air. Lab Station #5: Elaborate: Strike a fork with another utensil Adapted from Joy Janovec’s How Sound Travels at and bring it close to the ear. What http://mypages.iit.edu/~smile/ph9110.html do you hear? What do you see? 1. Based on their explorations in the Engage section, ask students to predict if or how well sound will travel through paper, plastic, and metal. Ask students what type of medium these Lab Station #6: items are (solids). Have the students put a ringing alarm clock in a paper bag Steel yardstick or ruler on edge of and close the bag. Can students hear the clock? Repeat, using a plastic a table. Hold one end of the ruler container and a metal can. firmly against the top of the table. 2. Now have students predict how well sound will travel through water. Have the Snap the other end. What do you students fill a glass jar nearly full with water. Have one student cover one ear see? What do you hear? with her/his hand and put the other ear against the glass jar. Ask another student to hit two spoons together under water. Can the ‘listening’ student hear a sound? continued

UBEATS Module 2/3 (12) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home 3. Organize students into pairs. Have the students complete the following activities and record their responses in their journals:

What kind of matter does sound travel best in--air, water, wood or metal?

A. 1. Hold a plastic bag of water against one of your ears. Cover your other ear with your hand. Have someone hold a ticking clock against the bag of water. Listen.

2. Keep the clock in the same place. Remove the bag of water. Listen.

3. Place a block of wood between your ear and the clock. Listen. Do you hear the clock best through the air, the water or the wood?

B. 1. Place the clock 20 cm (approximately 4 inches) away from your ear and listen to the ticking.

2. Have your partner hold the clock at the 20 cm mark (approximately 4 inches) on the meter stick. Place your ear at the end of the meter stick and listen.

3. Have your partner hold a metal rod to your ear and place the clock against the rod 20 cm (approximately 4 inches) away from your ear. Listen. Does sound move differently through some solids than it does through others?

C. 1. Take the plastic cups (telephone) and hold your cup to your ear while your friend talks slowly and clearly into the other cup. Keep the string tight. How does it work? What is vibrating? How do the vibrations of your friend’s voice reach your ear?

2. Can a third person talk and listen if another cup with a string is attached? Take the separate cup with the string and attach it to the first line. Keep all strings tight while one friend talks into one cup and the other two friends listen. Can you hear the message of the third party? How many lines could you attach? Does each addition weaken the vibrations?

4. After students have time to explore, have them come back and share their results. Which material conducted sound the best? What differences did students notice between materials?

EvaluatE: 1. Ask students to identify the three mediums through which sound travels. Have students order them from the one through which sound travels the best to the worst. 2. Have students explain why an animal living in water might have an easier time communicating compared to one living on land.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (13) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Physical Science 3: resources

Vocabulary Medium: What sounds travel through; a solid, liquid, or gas.

Websites The ‘Sound Waves Seen’ lesson from Discovery Education http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/programs/soundwaves/

The ‘Sound Waves Seen’ activity sheet from Discovery Education http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/worksheets/soundwaves/ worksheet1.html

The ‘How Sound Travels’ lesson from Joy Janovic http://mypages.iit.edu/~smile/ph9110.html

Worksheets (next page) The ‘Sound Waves Seen’ activity sheet from Discovery Education

UBEATS Module 2/3 (14) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Lab Station Worksheet

Name: ______Date: ______

Lab Station #1: Drum with paper clips on the top. Tap on the drum and observe what happens to the paper clips. What do you see? What do you hear?

Lab Station #2: Touch the side of your throat and say “Ahhhh.” What do you feel as you say “ahhhh?” What do you hear?

Lab Station #3: Tuning fork in water. Gently strike the tuning fork and place it in the water. Describe what you observe. What do you see? What do you hear?

Lab Station #4: Rubber band strung between two pegs or nails. Pluck the rubber band. What do you see? What do you hear? —OR— Tighten the peg on the wood by turning it. What do you see? What do you hear as the peg tightens?

Lab Station #5: Strike a fork with another utensil and bring it close to the ear. What do you hear? What do you see?

Lab Station #6: Steel yardstick or ruler on edge of a table. Hold one end of the ruler firmly against the top of the table. Snap the other end. What do you see? What do you hear? Is there a difference between the plastic and metal rulers?

UBEATS Module 2/3 (15) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home The Phenomenon of Sound: Sound Waves Seen!

Lab # ______

Diagram:

______

1. What do you see?

2. What do you hear?

3. What is the source of the vibration? Label it as the source on your diagram.

4. What type of medium is the wave traveling through? (for example, solid, liquid, or gas). Label this as the medium on our diagram.

5. In what direction does the wave appear to travel? Draw its path on your diagram using a line and an arrow to represent the sound wave.

6. What happens to the medium as the wave travels? Be specific.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (16) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 1: How Do We Hear?

Introduction: Both humans and animals use hearing, one of the five senses, to observe what is going on in the world around them. The size of the ear, as well as the way that it is constructed, allows an animal to hear Learning Outcomes: The learner will a range of sounds and pitches. This lesson introduces students to how identify the parts of the ear and how animals hear and how the shape of the ear affects what is heard. those parts function as a system. The learner will analyze how the shape of the ear affects an animal’s hearing.

Science Process Skills: Auditory Observation, Classification, Inference, Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate Measurement, Reflection 5E Engage : Time: Forty-five minutes Ask students what they already know about the human ear; share responses on the board. Materials: Journals, pencils, cups, Explain to students that today they will be plastic wrap, rubber bands, dry rice, CD neurologists (scientists that study the brain) and player or computer, internet access that they will study ears and how they help different animals to hear.

ExplorE: 1. Prior to the lesson, cover the tops of the cups Curriculum Alignment: with plastic wrap and secure with a rubber band. Put some grains of rice or dry cereal National Science Education Standards on top of the covered cups. Make enough for Content Standard A: Abilities necessary students to work with a partner or in small groups. to do scientific inquiry 2. Ask students to try speaking next to the cup or try banging their fists • Understanding about scientific inquiry on the table to watch the rice vibrate. Ask students to test speaking at • Employ simple equipment and tools to different volumes, or to try banging at different strengths on the table. gather data and extend the senses What do they notice about how the plastic wrap and rice move? Try playing recordings of bass and treble sounds next to the cup. Do Content Standard C: Life Science students notice any differences in the way the rice moves when • The characteristics of organisms comparing the bass and treble sounds? Encourage students to think of • Organisms and their environments why these differences might occur.

National Music Standards

Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and Explain: describing music Inform students that they will study the parts of Goal 8: Understanding relationships the ear and how those parts enable people and between music, the other arts, and animals to hear. Ask students if they know what disciplines outside the arts part of the ear the plastic wrap represents (the eardrum). Explain that sound travels in waves through a medium (usually air) that cause the eardrum to vibrate.

continued

UBEATS Module 2/3 (17) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Have students look at the parts of the ear using the interactive model at http://www. innerbody.com/anim/ear.html. Encourage students to examine the function of three specific parts of the ear and how they work: the outer ear, the eardrum, and the brain. The outer ear collects sound waves and directs them toward the eardrum. As the eardrum vibrates, the vibrations move tiny hairs inside the ear, which send signals to the brain and allow it to interpret the vibrations as sounds. The vibrations seen in the Approx. Frequency Explore activity serve as a model of the sound waves vibrating the eardrum. Inform Species range (Hz) students that children have more sensitive hearing than adults and can hear a wider

Human 20-20,000 (20/20 KHZ) variety of sounds. For example, most children can hear higher frequencies (i.e., higher Dog 67-45,000 pitches) than adults. Cat 45-64,000 In a way, the outer ear acts as a funnel. The wider the opening of the ear, the more Cow 23-35,000 sound that can be directed to the eardrum. What outer ear shape do students think Horse 55-33,500 allows an animal to hear well? (Ears with wide openings, as they can channel more Sheep 100-30,000 sound.) What animals do students think tend to have the best hearing? Why do they Rabbit 360-42,000 think this is? Rat 200-76,000 Mouse 1,000-91,000 Gerbil 100-60,000 Elaborate: Guinea pig 54-50,000 1. Explain to students that an animal’s hearing is also Hedgehog 250-45,000 affected by the frequency and amplitude of the sound. Raccoon 100-40,000 Remind students that amplitude refers to the loudness Ferret 16-44,000 or softness of a sound. Opossum 500-64,000 2. Play recordings of sound samples at high amplitudes and at low amplitudes so that students can compare. Also remind students that frequency Chinchilla 90-22,800 refers to the number of sound vibrations occurring in a second – the more Bat 2,000-110,000 vibrations, the higher the pitch of the sound. Play samples of sounds occurring at Beluga whale 1,000-123,000 both low and high frequencies. The tiny hairs inside the ear, the cilia, bend and Elephant 16-12,000 interpret sounds of different frequencies. Now is a good time to remind students Porpoise 75-150,000 that very loud sounds (i.e., high amplitude) contain too much energy for the ear to Goldfish 20-3,000 process and can permanently damage the cilia and thus your ability to hear. Catfish 50-4,000 3. Some species of animals are better at recognizing different frequencies than Bullfrog 100-3,000 others – see the chart to the left for examples to share with the class. Often, there Tree frog 50-4,000 can be differences within species as well – as stated above, children have more Canary 250-8,000 sensitive hearing than adults and are better able to detect higher frequencies. Parakeet 200-8,500 Some animals, including many cats and dogs, are also able to move their ears to Cockatiel 250-8,000 better gather sound waves, unlike humans. The ability to adjust one’s ears or move Owl 200-12,000 the head to best pick up sounds greatly impacts what an animal can hear. 4. Have students create their own sounds using the computer (http://www.wildmusic. Chicken 125-2,000 org/en/aboutsound/mosquito/tone) to test the hearing of their family, friends, and even their pets. How well can others detect the sound? Are there any differences Source: http://www.lsu.edu/ based on age or gender? deafness/HearingRange.html

Additional information on Evaluate: sound can be found at www.physics.info/sound/ Provide students with a diagram of the ear. (See http:// www.innerbody.com/anim/ear.html or this lesson’s Resources section.) Have them label the three main parts (the outer ear, eardrum, and cilia) and explain how those parts help an animal to hear.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (18) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 1: resources

Vocabulary Cilia: Tiny hairs inside the ear that move as they receive sound vibrations, sending messages to the brain to interpret the sound.

Eardrum: A piece of skin in the ear that vibrates due to sound waves, allowing an animal to hear.

Outer ear: The portion of the ear responsible for channeling sound vibrations into the eardrum and inner ear.

Websites Ear Diagram http://www.innerbody.com/anim/ear.html

Hearing Chart http://www.lsu.edu/deafness/HearingRange.html

Test Hearing http://www.wildmusic.org/en/aboutsound/mosquito/tone

Additional information on sound www.physics.info/sound/

Inner ear diagram

UBEATS Module 2/3 (19) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home UBEATS Module 2/3 (20) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 2: Can we determine how well other animals hear?

Learning Outcomes: Building on Introduction: This lesson allows students to explore how the information from Life Science 1, the animals hear and how the shape of the ear affects what is heard. learner will identify and analyze how While many mammals use similar internal structures (as described the shape of the ear affects an animal’s in Life Science 1) to aid in the perception of sound, outer ear hearing. The learner will compare the structure can also be a factor in enabling animals to hear. hearing range of various animals by observing ear structure and frequency perception.

Science Process Skills: Auditory Observation, Classification, Inference, Measurement, Reflection E Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate Time: Forty-five-minutes 5 Engage: Materials: Journals, pencils, plain 1. Give students a set of animal ear paper, tape, scissors, music, animal ear pictures to observe (in Resources picture cards (one set per pair of partners section at the end of this lesson). Ask – see samples at the end of the lesson), students if they think how an animal’s CD player or computer, internet access ear is shaped helps it to hear. Have students work with a partner to sort the set of animal ear cards into a ranked order for how well they think the animals hear. 2. Ask students to explain the order in which they put the animals. Encourage students to consider what they have just learned Curriculum Alignment: about the ability of the outer ear to collect sound waves – does National Science Education Standards the shape of the animal’s outer ear play a part in the order in which they are placed? Explain to students that they are Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to inferring this information based on what they know and on their do scientific inquiry observations of the animals’ ears. • Understanding about scientific inquiry 3. Remind students that while they are currently looking just at • Employ simple equipment and tools to the structure of the outer ear, many animals do not have ears gather data and extend the senses that look like a human ear but can hear very well. For example, Content Standard C: Life Science the dolphin can hear fourteen times better than humans, but it • The characteristics of organisms does not have visible outer ears! This is because dolphins hear • Organisms and their environments through a sophisticated hearing sense that is located in small ear openings on both sides of the head. However, it is believed National Music Standards that hearing underwater is mainly accomplished through the lower jaw bone that conducts sounds to the middle ear. Ask Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and students to brainstorm a list of other animals that might hear describing music very well, but do not necessarily have large outer ears. Explain Goal 8: Understanding relationships that students will now look at what adaptations these animals between music, the other arts, and have, allowing them to hear well. disciplines outside the arts

UBEATS Module 2/3 (21) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Explore: 1. Place the CD player on the side of the room opposite of the students. Quietly play music and ask them to listen. 2. Have each student form a funnel using the paper and scissors and secure it with tape. Have the students hold their funnel up to their ear – how well can they hear the music now? Explain that the funnel helps to channel, or gather, the sound and make it easier to hear, as well as acting as a filter to block sound waves that are coming from other directions (background noise). 3. Students may want to try changing the direction in which the funnel is pointing or which end of the funnel is at their ear to see how the sound changes. Ask students to describe the differences using the terminology of dynamics and amplitude, two vocabulary words discussed in a previous lesson. Does the amplitude/dynamics of the sound differ based on the direction and position of the funnel? Does the funnel only help increase the amplitude of high or low frequencies or both?

Explain: Play the NOVA video on animal hearing, available at http://www.teachersdomain. org/resource/tdc02.sci.life.reg.animalhear/. The video demonstrates to students how different animals use hearing as their primary sense for survival. The concepts of sound waves, amplitude, and pitch, are reinforced in the two-minute video. How do the findings in the video coincide with what students discovered in the lesson? Are there any differences?

Elaborate: 1. The Wild Music Website (http://www.wildmusic.org) provides students with several opportunities to compare their hearing within and among species. Because students have been told that they are better able to hear different frequencies than adults, you may also have them go to the Wild Music website and take the ‘Test Your Hearing’ test (http://www.wildmusic.org/aboutsound). The teacher could also take the test to compare an adult’s hearing to the children’s. The ‘Mosquito’ activity (http://www. wildmusic.org/aboutsound/mosquito) will ask students to examine the frequencies that they are able to detect compared to other species of animals. Encourage students to consider the order in which they placed their animal photos based on how well they thought each animal could hear. How well did their predictions align with the results shared in the Mosquito activity on the Wild Music site? Are there any animals that were affected not by the size of their ears, but instead by the frequencies that they could detect? 2. Ask students to pick one of the animals from the animal cards and draw its ear. Ask the students to reshape their funnel to represent the ear of their animal. Do they think that the animal will have better or worse hearing than a human? Ask students to write their inferences in their journals. Students may also draw pictures of the ears for comparison. Ask students to explain their answers based on their knowledge of the structure of the ear, particularly the outer ear, in channeling sound. Some students may select animals from the frequency chart in Life Science 1 – in this case, it can also be valuable to remind students that in addition to ear shape, the range of frequencies interpreted by the animal also affect how much it hears. 3. Once students have made their funnel shapes and predicted how well they will hear, replay the music. Can students hear better or worse?

UBEATS Module 2/3 (22) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Evaluate: 1. Ask students to reorder their animal cards independently. Have them write their order of animals for how well the animals could hear and explain why they chose their particular order.

Extensions: Many animals can perk and turn their ears up to help them hear better. People, on the other hand, have to turn their heads to hear. Consider using plastic aquarium tubing attached to a funnel so that students can see what it is like to adjust their ears to hear from different directions without moving their heads.

Encourage students to consider and explore other factors that affect an animal’s ability to hear. In instances of hearing loss, for example, there may not be issues with the structure of the outer ear, where sound is channeled, or with the animal’s ability to detect different frequencies. Instead, there may be problems including health issues (e.g., earwax, ear infections, tumors, or malformation of ear parts) and nerve damage connecting the ear to the brain. Have students examine the causes of hearing loss and the research being done to help animals restore their hearing.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (23) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 2 resources

Websites NOVA video on animal hearing http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/tdc02.sci.life.reg.animalhear/

Wild Music website http://www.wildmusic.org

Test Your Hearing http://www.wildmusic.org/aboutsound

The Mosquito activity http://www.wildmusic.org/aboutsound/mosquito

Samples of ‘Ear Cards’

UBEATS Module 2/3 (24) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 3: Do Animals Make Music?

Introduction: Scientists often debate whether or not animals truly make music. However, scientists have clearly demonstrated that both animals and humans use sound as a means to communicate: find a mate, protect and warn against predators, or identify and locate community members. This lesson introduces students to the idea of animals using sounds as a means for communication.

Learning Outcomes: The learner will explore sounds in nature. The learner will identify expressive qualities in music. The learner will make connections between the Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate use of music by humans and the use of sounds in the natural world. E 5 Engage: Science Process Skills: Observation, Play for students popular children’s songs Classification interspersed with animal sounds. Use simple songs such as “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” Time: One hour “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and “Three Materials: Journals, pencils, examples Blind Mice.” Intersperse animal sounds, such as a dolphin sound, or a of children’s songs and animal songs chickadee, and so forth. Great samples of bird songs can be found at http://macaulaylibrary.org/index.do. As you play the songs, ask students Technology Resources: Computer to record in their journals which sounds are music and which are not. with internet access You can also tally on the board student thoughts regarding which sounds are music and which are not.

Curriculum Alignment: Explore:

National Science Education Standards 1. Ask students to consider what they know about how sound, animals, and music are Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to related. Take students outside to listen for do scientific inquiry the sounds that different animals make, or • Understanding about scientific inquiry allow students the opportunity to explore sounds using resources • Employ simple equipment and tools to such as the internet or animal recordings. gather data and extend the senses 2. Have students record in their journals what they hear using words

Content Standard C: Life Science or pictures. Encourage students to listen for the characteristics of the • The characteristics of organisms sounds that animals make – are there patterns, are the sounds quiet • Organisms and their environments or loud, and why might a scientist want to study the sounds? Encourage students to use both the musical and scientific National Music Standards terminology they have learned through the unit, including amplitude

Goal 1: Singing alone and with others and dynamics. In describing the pitch of the sound, ask students to Goal 3: Improvising melodies, variations, explain the frequency of the vibrations occurring to reinforce a and accompaniments challenging concept. Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and 3. Inform students that they will examine the difference between music describing music and animal sounds. Ask students if they know what an animal call is Goal 7: Evaluate music and music and can provide an example, performing ‘Animal Karaoke.’ Have the performances students perform different examples for the group; can other students Goal 8: Understanding relationships guess what animal is being mimicked? Remind students of music between music, the other arts, and and science terminology including amplitude, dynamics, pitch, and disciplines outside the arts frequency. Can students use these terms to describe the differences in Goal 9: Understanding music in relation to the sounds performed? They should also use descriptive terms such history and culture as high/low and short/long.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (25) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Explain: Inform students that humans have classified sounds made by living beings into three different types: vocalizations, animal songs, and human music. The audience for all of these receives information from hearing them. Vocalizations (see Concepts and Science Process Skills) are sounds made by animals (including humans) from within their bodies rather than using instruments. Explain that other animals’ vocalizations are sounds that people do not necessarily understand, such as the roar of a lion or the chirping of a bird but that they have meaning for their species. Play students other examples of animal calls, found at http://macaulaylibrary.org/index.do. Can students identify the animals making the sounds? Can they come up with any vocalizations made by people (i.e., baby crying, laughing, sneezing, burping)?

The second type of sounds made by animals is songs (see Concepts and Science Process Skills). Animal songs are vocalizations that have elements that humans recognize as being musical. Play recordings of some animal song samples, such as the humpback whale songs or bird songs. Ask students if they understand what the animal is trying to communicate. Although these songs contain musical elements that students can describe, such as pitch and contour, humans cannot truly understand their meaning and associate it with human emotions. Contour (see Concepts and Science Process Skills) refers to direction of the pitches of the song that we hear as flowing from high to low or vice versa. The contour can be represented visually by using gestures or drawing a shaped line. This places animal songs on a different level than human music because we can identify the pattern, but we cannot always identify the meaning. Are there any identifiable patterns in the songs, such as repetition? Ask students to sing back or clap back any rhythms they hear in the animal songs. Encourage students to also describe the pitch, dynamics/ amplitude, and contour of the sound.

The third type of animal sounds is human music (see Concepts and Science Process Skills). Ask students to think for a minute about how animal songs and human music are similar and different. Ask them to list what similarities and differences they think they hear in the songs in their science journals. Similarities may include: • Identifiable patterns • Identifiable meanings • The use of tools to create sounds • The use of the voice to create sounds

Human music and animal songs are both influenced by their culture. ‘Where we live’ is shared with other animals. ‘What is going on around them’ and ‘how they feel’ are part of human music-making but we do not know if they are part of other animal songs. Music made by people tells others about where they live, what events are going on around them, and how they feel. For example, students may associate the tune “Here Comes the Bride” with weddings and celebrations rather than funerals and sadness. Human music has emotional and cultural aspects that separate it from animal songs.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (26) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Elaborate: 1. Replay for students the songs from the Engage section of this lesson. Ask students to notice the differences and similarities between the animal songs and the human songs. Do students want to change any of their original decisions on which sounds are songs and which are not? 2. Ask the students if they can recognize and can clap or sing any of the patterns found in the songs. Also ask what differences they notice between the animal and human songs.

Evaluate: Ask students to write down the three types of sound styles in their journals (i.e., vocalizations, animal songs, and human music making) and to identify the similarities and differences between each of the three.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (27) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 3: resources

Vocabulary Animal song: Simpler and shorter than human songs; uses repetitive patterns and imitation to communicate with others; has some cultural variations. Humans do not know what they mean.

Contour: The direction of the pitches of a song or sounds that are heard as flowing from high to low or vice versa.

Human music: Human music has cultural and emotional connotations that influence their meaning; different from animal songs in that humans understand their meaning.

Vocalizations: Sounds made by animals (including humans) from within their bodies rather than using instruments.

Websites Macaulay Library, Cornell University http://macaulaylibrary.org/index.do

UBEATS Module 2/3 (28) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 4: How does nature inspire human music making?

Introduction: Sounds found in nature often serve as inspiration for human-music making because they use elements of human music-making and because their sounds have aesthetically pleasing qualities. This lesson introduces students Learning Outcomes: The learner will to the idea of nature inspiring human music-making. explore different international cultures and describe how sounds found in nature inspire music made within the community.

Science Process Skills: Observation, Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate Classification 5E Time: Forty-five minutes Engage: Play popular songs for students such Materials: Journals, pencils as “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” or “The Wedding March.” Ask students Technology Resources: Internet what these songs say to them, and what access, CD player events these songs depict. Inform students that many cultures, including American culture, use songs to communicate messages and share information with others.

Curriculum Alignment: Explore: National Science Education Standards 1. Explain to students that humans often draw on inspiration from the Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to wild to create their music. Different do scientific inquiry cultures of people often incorporate • Understanding about scientific inquiry vocalizations in their music and give them meanings that are • Employ simple equipment and tools to understood by the members of that culture. In nature, animals gather data and extend the senses use accepted or recognized vocalizations to send a message Content Standard C: Life Science quickly and efficiently, sometimes across large distances. • The characteristics of organisms For groups of individuals living far apart, but needing a way to • Organisms and their environments communicate, using vocalizations allows them to carry sounds across a great distance. National Music Standards 2. Sometimes different groups or cultures of people use accepted or recognized vocalizations to create songs, such as Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and the Mongolian Long Song, Urtyn Duu, (http://www.4shared. describing music com/audio/5TmSCpbY/16__MONGOLIA__long_song_urtyn_. Goal 7: Evaluate music and music htm). In Mongolian Long Songs, sounds of different lengths performances. and words describing the landscape are strung together to Goal 8: Understanding relationships make music. Play students examples of Mongolian Long Songs between music, the other arts, and so they can hear the different vocalizations used. Point out to disciplines outside the arts students both the incorporation of sounds from nature, Goal 9: Understanding music in relation including birds, wind, and water. to history and culture

UBEATS Module 2/3 (29) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Explain: Mongolian Long Songs are important to Mongolian people because they allow sounds to carry from one person to another across the mountains and even while riding on horseback. In a way, this culture is taking a common animal behavior – vocalization – and giving it human meaning and representation in music. The Mongolian people place great value on nature and try to incorporate sounds from nature into their songs.

Elaborate: 1. Have students work together in groups of three to four. Assign each group a culture to study. 2. Have students look for musical examples from their assigned culture; have them identify if the song selected uses vocalizations, animal song, or human music. 3. Encourage students to create a visual presentation of their researched cultural group, such as a poster or brochure that includes examples of vocalizations, animal song, human music, group location, a map, and other cultural distinctions.

Some cultural representations to consider include: a. Field Hollers b. Mongolian Long Song c. Nuba Tribal Songs

Evaluate: Evaluate student accuracy in their depiction of the music from their assigned culture in the Elaborate activity. Do students recognize the different types of sounds found in their selected musical sample?

Life Science 4: resources

Websites Mongolian Long Song http://www.4shared.com/audio/5TmSCpbY/16__MONGOLIA__long_song_ urtyn_.htm

UBEATS Module 2/3 (30) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 5: How can we describe animal sounds?

Learning Outcomes: The learners will Introduction: Animals of all species, shape, size, and habitat create analyze the pitch, dynamics, and tempo of sounds using their bodies and voices. Animal vocalizations can represent different sounds. Learners will infer the value calls, hollers and/or songs. Some animals use deeper sounds and create of each animal having its own distinct sound. lower sounding calls or songs. Others use higher sounding pitches. It is Science Process Skills: Observation, important to specify that high and low pitch is different than high and Communicate, Measure, Predict, Classification low volume (dynamics). Animal and human vocalizations are based on environmental factors and genetic composition. Time: Two forty-five minute sessions

Materials: The book titled An Egg is Quiet, The great variety of species leads to a wealth of sounds, calls, and songs. by Dianna Hutts Aston, one egg carton per In this lesson, students will examine the different ways to describe sounds group, one dozen plastic eggs that contain and discuss the value of each species of animal having its own sound. various items in each (can be glued together so that students do not look inside), data table. Note: any shaker container can be used such as film canisters etc. When selecting items for the containers, con- Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate sider using items with similar dynamics and pitches, such as pennies and paper clips, but 5E different timbres (see Concepts and Science Engage: Process Skills). This will provide students the Show students the book An Egg is Quiet, by opportunity to consider the value of listening Dianna Hutts Aston, and have them predict to the timbre of a sound to help identify the what types of animals come out of eggs. Write item. Another two eggs might contain rice and students’ predictions on a graphic organizer titled salt, two items that also have similar dynamics ‘Egg Laying Animals.’ Read the story to the students and discuss any and pitch, but again different timbres. animals that were originally predicted. Discuss with students why the title An Egg is Quiet is appropriate for the story. Ask students to explain why the author wrote an egg is noisy at the end of the story.

Curriculum Alignment: Explore: National Science Education Standards 1. Discuss the differences in sounds among the various species (e.g., alligator, bird, etc.) of Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to do animals in the world, both in the book and scientific inquiry based on student knowledge. How do the • Understanding about scientific inquiry vocalizations of different species of baby animals compare to those of • Employ simple equipment and tools to baby humans? gather data and extend the senses 2. Ask students to brainstorm the reasons that sounds are different from Content Standard C: Life Science one species of animal to another. Share with students that vocalizations • The characteristics of organisms are affected by size, geography, and acoustics, among other factors, • Organisms and their environments and that each animal species needs its own ‘signature’ sound so that it can be identified by other animals of the same species. Timbre (see National Music Standards Concepts and Science Process Skills) is the quality of sound that can Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and most closely be described as its texture, using words, for example, such describing music as ‘rough,’ ‘scratchy,’ ‘gravelly,’ etc. Some individuals have described Goal 8: Understanding relationships between timbre as the sound component that differs between two sounds that music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts continued

UBEATS Module 2/3 (31) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home are identical in pitch (frequency) and dynamics (amplitude). In music, for example, the difference between the sounds of a piano and a trumpet can be heard even when both instruments play the identical pitches at identical dynamics. Timbre is affected by how a sound is produced (e.g., scraping, plucking, reed vibration, etc.) and the material through which the sound travels (e.g., metal, wood, air, etc.). Physically, the differences in timbre are created by different mixtures of sound waves, since almost no sound that we hear is the result of a single sound wave. However, timbre is usually described based on how we perceive a sound, so we use descriptive words to characterize these perceptions. 3. Explain to students that it is important to be able to describe the differences in sound for each species of animal, because scientists learn from one another how to recognize these differences. By using musical and scientific terminology, scientists can accurately describe these sounds for their colleagues and explain if they are vocalizations, animal songs, or human music. 4. Explore various material properties of humans’ instruments (e.g., metal, water, strings, wood) and the cultures associated with them. Encourage students to describe the sounds made by these instruments in terms of dynamics, tempo (fast-medium- slow), pitch (high/low directions and contour), and timbre. Remind students that dynamics refers to the volume (how loud or soft a sound is), tempo is how fast or slow a sound seems to us, pitch is how high or low and changes in pitch refer to contour, and timbre refers to the quality of the sound. 5. This may be an interesting moment to ask the children to ‘sound’ angry or happy – but say words that do not match the sound. What are the qualities of sound we humans use to sound angry or happy? Do other animals also use qualities of sound to convey feelings? How important are timbre, dynamics, pitch in shaping the message?

Explain: Share with students the research of Bernie Krause, a bioacoustician who records animal sounds in different environments. He has noted that because each species uses specific frequencies and timbres, animals can differentiate their own species from others, an essential survival tool. According to Bernie Krause’s research, each animal’s sound occupies a specific ‘niche’ or its own sound-space. This is called the niche hypothesis (see Concepts and Science Process Skills). However, because someone might not be able to identify the frequency of the sound without special equipment, musical terms can help describe sounds without additional technology.

In studying the instruments through the Explore section, ask students to consider the dynamics (how loud or soft), pitch (high or low), tempo (speed), and timbre (quality) of each sound. Explain that students will measure these sounds eventually using recording equipment, but for now they will observe with their ears. Go through the instruments that students explored as a class and use combinations of the above musical terms to describe each of the sounds. Have students explore how instruments might be played to occupy their own sound-space. Some examples may include:

Cymbals (high pitch, loud dynamics, metallic timbre) Guiro (low pitch, low dynamics, rattly timbre)

UBEATS Module 2/3 (32) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Elaborate: 1. Explain to students that they will now imagine they are in the field and have come across a nest of unusual looking eggs. It is the students’ job to predict what is in the eggs and to describe the sounds using musical terminology including pitch, timbre, and amplitude/dynamics. 2. Tell students that you will give each team a set of a dozen sound eggs to observe and have them work with partners to predict what is making the sound in the eggs. Use a blackline master similar to the following:

Sound Eggs Items that could be in the plastic eggs: rice, beans, pennies, rubber bands, keys, paper clips, sand, rocks, nails

Prediction Musical Description Results

1. nails Loud, metallic Pennies

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

3. Once students have explored the eggs, come back together as a group to share student predictions and musical descriptions. Was every prediction supported by the investigation? How might the same results happen for scientists? Create a class copy of the chart to put on the overhead or on a poster. Have students share the words they used to describe the dynamics/amplitude, pitch, and timbre of the sounds heard. Add this information to the class chart. Discuss any differences students noticed – for example, the dynamics/amplitude of the sound heard would depend on how hard each group of students shook the egg. Explain to students that it is important to be careful in determining how to describe a sound – for example, ‘timbre’ is valuable way to discern the difference between pennies and paperclips, as both have a similar pitch and amplitude. 4. Ask students to consider why animals produce different sounds, like the eggs. Can students brainstorm a list of physical characteristics, behavioral characteristics, and environmental characteristics that might affect an animal’s sound? After brainstorming their list, inform students that the next several lessons will examine the different ways that animals produce sounds as well as the environmental factors affecting sound production.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (33) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Evaluate: 1. Ask students to journal about the following: Why might a scientist use musical terms to describe the sounds heard? What musical terms might they choose to use? 2. Ask students to evaluate the pros and cons of each animal having its own special sound in their journals. 3. Review student data charts from the eggs activity for completion/correct musical descriptions of sounds.

Life Science 5: resources

Vocabulary Niche Hypothesis: The theory that each animal has its own sound-space within a given ecosystem; the frequencies and timbres of the animal’s call fit in that airspace as an adaptation for survival. Introducing the concept that sound-space is important and real is essential to understanding the niche hypothesis and many elements of animal communication. Helping children to become sensitive to how sound complements, stays within its social boundaries, or intrudes is an important element of this lesson. It may be helpful to children to understand ‘silence’ as a powerful communicating device by asking them to consider examples of when silence sends a message.

Tempo: The speed of the sounds.

Timbre: The quality of sounds. Some adjectives used to describe timbre include: reedy, brassy, metallic, rattly, clear, sharp, breathy, rounded, piercing, strident, scratchy, harsh, warm/mellow, and resonant.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (34) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 6: How Do Birds Produce sounds?

Introduction: Adult birds teach the baby birds to sing. The length and quantity of song repertoire depends on the type of bird. The voice mechanism in humans is called the larynx. In birds, it is called the syrinx. The syrinx is located where the bird’s windpipe branches to its Learning Outcomes: The learner will lungs, allowing the bird to make more than one pitch at a time, which explore sounds in nature. The learner will humans cannot do. identify how birds produce sound and explain that the parent bird teaches the baby how to communicate.

Science Process Skills: Observation, Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate Communicate, Measure, Predict E Time: One hour 5 Engage:

Materials: recordings of several different Ask the students to think about the sounds bird calls or songs (these can be obtained that birds make. Have the students imitate a through the Cornell Ornithology Department’s bird call or whistle, as if they are doing ‘bird Macaulay Library at http://macaulaylibrary. karaoke.’ Listen and discuss various bird org/index.do), plastic drinking glasses one per sounds (e.g., robin, turkey, crow, etc.) and how they are similar and student, various craft supplies such as googly different from each other and from the sounds that humans make. Can eyes, felt, and feathers, (construction paper students think of a reason these sounds are different from each other? can be used if you do not have craft supplies). Explore: 1. Ask students to brainstorm how the birds learn their songs. Inform students

Curriculum Alignment: that, like humans, baby birds learn to communicate from their parents. National Science Education Standards 2. Discuss how we (humans) learn to communicate, including making Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to do songs. Before babies learn to speak in the formal language of their scientific inquiry caretakers, they explore and practice making sounds – often called • Understanding about scientific inquiry ‘babble.’ Explore and play examples of human baby babble and bird • Employ simple equipment and tools to baby babble. Explain to students that both human babies and bird gather data and extend the senses babies learn different sounds from listening to their parents. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/birdsongs-0501.html Content Standard B: Physical Science (baby bird babble) • Position and motion of objects http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDocL7AfIRo • Sound is produced by vibrating objects, (human baby babble) the pitch of the sound can be varied by 3. Compare song structure similarities and differences of birds and changing the rate of vibration humans. Briefly discuss rote singing, musical phrases, echo Content Standard C: Life Science singing and call-and-response. • The characteristics of organisms • Organisms and their environments Rote singing or echo singing (see Concepts and Science Process Skills) occurs when an animal listens to a musical pattern and National Music Standards then sings the exact same pattern. Both birds and humans Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and engage in rote (echo) singing. In call and response (see Concepts describing music and Science Process Skills), one person sings a musical pattern, Goal 8: Understanding relationships between which is followed by others singing back a different musical music, the other arts, and disciplines pattern. Animals also engage in this activity. These patterns are outside the arts continued

UBEATS Module 2/3 (35) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home made up of musical phrases (see Vocabulary at the end of this lesson), or short groupings of pitches. In music, phrases are combined to form melodies. Both birds and humans use short groupings of pitches or phrases to create melodies or songs. Encourage students to think of children’s songs or popular songs that demonstrate call and response. Share call and response songs with students such as “Way Down Yonder in the Brickyard,” “Pay Me My Money Down,” or “Day-O.”

Explain: Discuss how different types of birds have songs that vary in length and complexity (e.g. cuckoo vs. thrush). Can students think of reasons why birds have such different songs? Bird calls vary based on the species – different adult birds also teach their babies their own song from their neighborhood, rather than all birds of the same species singing the same song. This is similar to the cultural variations in human music – different groups of individuals create different types of music.

Students may also notice that different birds include different patterns (see Concepts and Science Process Skills) in their songs, much like humans include different patterns in their music. Remind students of the songs “Three Blind Mice,” “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” from lesson four. Can students identify the musical phrases and patterns in these songs? Can students come up with more songs that include patterns?

Elaborate: 1. Tell students that they will be making Bird Calling Cups using the drinking glass, yarn, paperclips and decorations. Provide directions for assembling bird cups and allow students to demonstrate their bird calls to the class.

Bird Cup Directions:

1. Poke a hole in the bottom of a cup. Keep cup upside down throughout activity. 2. Tie a piece of yarn to a paper clip. 3. Put the end of the yarn that does not have the paperclip on it through the hole in the cup. Pull it until the clip is resting on the cup. 4. Decorate the cup to look like a bird. (googly eyes, feathers, etc)

Hold your cup at the top where the paper clip is, dip your fingers in water and pinch the yarn near the bottom of the cup. Jerk down on the yarn to make the bird call.

Explain:

UBEATS Module 2/3 (36) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home The vibrating mechanism inside of the human throat is the larynx (see Concepts and Science Process Skills). Many people call it their voice box. The larynx houses the vocal cords. During speech, air pushes between the vocal cords that are stretched across the larynx, causing them to vibrate and produce sound. The moving air conveys the energy necessary to vibrate the vocal cords. Various muscles adjust the tension and space of the vocal cords, which causes the variety of sounds they can produce. The speed and amount of moving air (energy) will affect the amplitude of the sound produced.

Animals make sounds similar to humans and use these sounds to communicate with other members of their species. Like humans, birds have a special organ called a syrinx (see Concepts and Science Process Skills) that makes sound but their syrinx does not contain vocal cords. Instead, the bird’s syrinx rests right where their windpipe connects to their lungs. The muscles in the syrinx tighten to produce sound – the tighter the muscles, the faster the vibrations, making a higher pitch. As the bird breathes out, it can change the amount of pressure it puts on the syrinx, which changes the sound produced.

Humans are able to produce only one sound at a time. Their larynx or voice box is located high up in their trachea, or windpipe. Because a bird has its syrinx close to its two lungs, it has two sources of air to make sound, and can produce two sounds at the same time! Each side of the syrinx is controlled separately, allowing both sounds to be produced simultaneously.

Birds not only make different sounds because of different abilities of their syrinx or lungs (physiological), but they also mimic sound patterns learned from their parents (behavioral).

Elaborate: 1. Take students to the Wild Music site on Thrush Songs (http://www.wildmusic.org/ en/animals/thrush). At the site, students can listen to four different thrush songs and try to match the sound with the correct thrush. Point out to students that although all of the birds are thrushes, they do not have the exact same sound. 2. Discuss with students the patterns heard in each sound – bird calls have patterns in them that are unique to the species. See if students can successfully complete the thrush challenge. Take advantage of the slowed down version of the Thrush Song at the Wild Music website so students can hear and identify when they think the ‘double sound’ (two sounds at the same time) of the syrinx is being used.

Evaluate: 1. Ask students to explain how birds learn to sing, and what is unique in each bird’s song. 2. Ask students to create a unique bird call pattern using their calling cups; have them teach their pattern to the other ‘baby birds’ in the class.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (37) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 6: resources

Vocabulary Larynx: The organ of voice in mammals; commonly known as the voice box; a tubular chamber, consisting of walls of cartilage bound by ligaments and membranes, and moved by muscles.

Musical phrases: Short patterns of pitches in music that combine to form melodies.

Pattern: Groupings of sounds that our brain interprets as a memorable unit. Sound patterns are the basis for musical memory and are used in recognizable sound/ song forms as imitation, call and response, and rote singing.

Rote or echo singing: When an animal listens to a musical pattern and then sings the exact pattern.

Syrinx: The vocal organ of birds, located where the trachea branches off to the two lungs and that can produce two pitches at the same time.

Websites Macaulay Library at Cornell University http://macaulaylibrary.org/index.do

Baby Bird Babble http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/birdsongs-0501.html

Human Baby Babble http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDocL7AfIRo

Thrush Songs http://www.wildmusic.org/en/animals/thrush

Larynx and Syrinx Diagrams

Human larynx The vocal organ of a bird is called a syrinx

UBEATS Module 2/3 (38) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 7: What is the value of a signature Sound?

Learning Outcomes: The learners Introduction: Animals use and recognize specific sounds and calls to will recognize that animals create a wide communicate with one another in a variety of environments. If you were a variety of sounds and sound patterns. different kind of animal living in the wild, what sort of sounds would you Learners will begin to see that animals make to distinguish yourself from other animals? Students will work in adapt their sounds and sound patterns pairs to create a unique sound pattern that represents their species. in order to communicate with each other more effectively.

Science Process Skills: Aural Observation

Time: One hour

Materials: Science journals, Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate pencils, recordings of animal sounds E (these can be found through Cornell 5 University’s Macaulay Library at http:// Engage: macaulaylibrary.org/index.do) Engage students in a discussion on the benefits of having a ‘signature sound,’ or a sound unique Technology Resources: CD player to their species, their group or their family. (Sometimes human families establish a ‘special sound’ to find each other in a crowd. Do their families have a signature

Curriculum Alignment: sound?)

National Science Education Standards

Content Standard A: Abilities necessary Explore: to do scientific inquiry 1. Organize students into pairs or small groups. • Understanding about scientific inquiry 2. Inform students that today they will make their • Employ simple equipment and tools to own signature sound. Ask students to make a gather data and extend the senses sound that meets the following criteria: • The signature sound is unique to their ‘species’ Content Standard C: Life Science • The signature sound can easily be replicated by other members of • The characteristics of organisms their ‘species’ (This is a great time to point out how a sound that • Organisms and their environments cannot be replicated is of no use to a species – the animal’s message to its community would not get across, decreasing the chances National Music Standards for survival)

Goal 4: Composing and arranging music • The sound has an identifiable pattern for the listener to identify within specified guidelines and replicate Goal 5: Reading and notating music 3. Ask the students to create a sound that could be used to identify Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and themselves in a large group. Remind students that, like other animals, describing music their signature sound must be short, memorable, and easily imitated Goal 7: Evaluating music and music by others from the species. ‘Memorable,’ in this case, means unique: performances students’ vocalizations or calls must sound different from one Goal 8: Understanding relationships another’s so that they can be easily discerned from another between music, the other arts, and vocalization or call. disciplines outside the arts Goal 9: Understanding music in relation to history and culture

UBEATS Module 2/3 (39) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Explain: After creating their signature sound, ask students to demonstrate them for the class. Students must use musical words (e.g., pitch, contour, rhythm, tempo, and patterns) to explain their signature sound. Students must also explain why they chose these sonic elements.

Discuss with students the value of having a distinct signature sound associated with an animal species. Why do animals want to be able to tell the difference between members of their community? Provide examples such as chimpanzees identifying intruders to their community by the use of sound, bees helping lost members back to the hive through sound, and young animals locating their mothers through sound. A distinct signature sound provides animals with one of the means to survive in the wild.

Elaborate: 1. Allow students the opportunity to share their signature sound with the class. Do their classmates consider the sound easily replicable? 2. Encourage the classmates to try and mimic the signature sound made by each student. Can students identify and replicate the caller based on the sound that they make? Can students identify the pattern in the call?

Evaluate: Have students explain in their journals the benefit of having a ‘signature sound.’

Life Science 7: resources

Vocabulary Unique: Existing as a solo, having nothing else similar or with similar characteristics.

Websites Macaulay Library at Cornell University http://macaulaylibrary.org/index.do

UBEATS Module 2/3 (40) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 8: how do animals communicate using tools?

Learning Outcomes: Learners will recognize the ways that animals use tools for communication. Learners will demonstrate their understanding of the timbre of animal sounds by comparing them to human Introduction: Studying animal sounds and songs can instruments. Students will recognize that expose the students to musical elements such as pitch, contour, certain materials have specific sound dynamics, timbre, and tempo. Animals, like humans, often need properties. Students will begin inquiry into to communicate with each other over long distances. This long- human communication patterns. distance communication sometimes requires the use of tools Science Process Skills: Observation, from the natural world to enhance animal vocal ranges and the Inference, Classification distance their vocalizations or sound-making can travel. Sounds are the result of energy in the form of sound waves vibrating Time: One hour matter. ‘Tools’ for sound-making simply allow more sophisticated Materials: science journals, pencils, ways of making solids, liquids, and gasses vibrate and to extend recordings of animal sounds (provided at the animal’s ability to carry sounds farther or with specific pitches, http://macaulaylibrary.org/index.do), classroom amplitudes, or timbres. In this lesson, the students will explore the instruments, CD player, computer with internet ways that animals use tools to communicate. access; and hollow wood block, mallet, solid block. These are musical instruments that bands and orchestras routinely use and may be available through a local musical organization or school music teacher.

Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate

Curriculum Alignment: E 5 Engage: National Science Education Standards Ask students to consider what resources animals might use to produce sounds Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to do other than their vocal cords. Play a scientific inquiry recording of a woodpecker for the • Understanding about scientific inquiry • Employ simple equipment and tools to students. After the students have had a few opportunities to listen, gather data and extend the senses ask them to journal their answers to the following questions: 1. What (or who) is making this sound? Content Standard C: Life Science • The characteristics of organisms 2. Do you hear any patterns in the sounds? Draw a representation • Organisms and their environments of the pattern in your science journal and identify patterns by groups. Call the first pattern group ‘A’; a different pattern National Music Standards group ‘B.’ Some possible pattern groups are AB or ABA or Goal 2: Performing on instruments, alone and AAB or other combinations. NOTE: Explain to students that for with others, a varied repertoire of music woodpeckers, they should listen for a pattern that represents Goal 4: Composing and arranging music within the rhythm (the short/long combinations) of the sound. specified guidelines 3. What tool or tools do you think the woodpecker is using to Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and enhance its sound pattern? describing music Goal 7: Evaluate music and music performances Goal 8: Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts

UBEATS Module 2/3 (41) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Explore: 1. Provide a variety of classroom tools or instruments for students, such as wood blocks, temple blocks, Boomwhackers, xylophones, metalophones, guiros, maracas, castanets, etc. Ask students to use these instruments to recreate the animal sound they heard in the Engage section. To guide the students through this activity, have them describe and discuss the rhythm, tempo, dynamics, and timbre (see Concepts and Science Process Skills) of the animal sounds and instruments to frame their exploration of sound. For example, the sound has a low pitch, fast tempo, loud dynamics, and a scratchy 'timbre.' Timbre refers to the quality of sound, such as 'dark,' 'scratchy,' or 'gravelly' (see Life Science 5). Encourage students to make a chart to record (classify) their aural observations; an example is provided:

Tool/Animal Rhythm Tempo Dynamics timbre

Animal Sound

Tool Tried:

Tool Tried:

2. Ask for student volunteers who would like to perform along with the woodpecker recording. After the student performs, ask the student audience to compare the sounds made by their classmate, and the sound made on the recording. How similar were the two sounds? 3. Take a class survey to see what sort of materials the musical tools (i.e., instruments) were made of that created a sound that was most like the animal sound. The teacher should see a trend to wooden instruments (tree sounds), such as the wood blocks, xylophones, guiros, and castanets. 4. Ask students to draw conclusions about what type of animal is making this sound, and what tool the animal is using to create this sound. Always be sure to ask the student how the elements of sound were clues. Explain to the students that the woodpecker uses its home, the hollow tree it lives in, for many purposes. Ask students to make a list of ways that the woodpecker uses the tree as a tool. Some answers should include, ‘as a home,’ ‘to find food,’ ‘for protection from predators,’ etc. Students may question if the use of pecking by woodpeckers is a form of communication or a way to find food. However, some species, including the Pileated Woodpecker, use drumming and tapping as a form of communication. When a woodpecker and its mate agree on a nesting site, they communicate this agreement by tapping a set of rhythmic patterns (see the article at: http://www. jstor.org/pss/1365307). 5. Show students the woodblock. Show the students that the inside of the block is hollow, so the sounds you make when you strike the block with a mallet bounces around inside the hollow space. Because the sound can bounce or resonate inside the open space, the sound is louder, and can travel further through the forest than it would with a solid block. Hit a solid block with a mallet for a comparison. Play the recording of the woodpecker again. Ask the students, “Why is the tree a good tool for the woodpecker to use?”

UBEATS Module 2/3 (42) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Explain: Explain to students that there are times when an animal’s voice is not loud enough to send a message – sometimes they need to use tools to better communicate their messages, particularly in areas where sound might not travel well (remind them of their studies of the physics of sound in Physical Science 2). In addition to the woodpecker, students might be familiar with beavers slapping their tails on the water to send alarm calls to other beavers. Share a video clip of the beaver slapping its tail on the water with students (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=- 4990494457017865662#docid=-3774199605737749915).

Play for students recordings of the Borneo Tree Frog (http://www.npr.org/templates/ story/story.php?storyId=868161). Explain to students that the frog adjusts the pitch of its call based on the amount of water in the log. Ask the students if humans use any tools comparable to the Borneo Tree Frog to aid in their communication. Some results could include: • Amplifiers • Microphones • Good Acoustic Spaces • Megaphones (bathrooms, caves, auditoriums) • Our Bodies • Hearing Aids • Telephones • iPods

Many of these tools are used to aid in amplifying the sound. Remind students of previous discussions on amplitude – the tools make the sounds louder so that they can be better heard. Ask students what are the energy sources for the human tools that amplify sound.

Elaborate: 1. Play for students recordings of a variety of man-made sounds, such as: a. Ambulance Siren b. Alarm Clock c. Clapping d. Ring tones (and phone sounds such as ‘busy’ or ‘calling’ e. Computer iconic sounds 2. Have students answer the following questions for each sound: a. Describe the timbre, contour, dynamics, and tempo of this sound. b. Do you hear any patterns in this sound? Does it have groups of patterns such as AB, ABA, AAB, ABB, etc.? c. What is this sound communicating? d. Do these sounds have anything in common? 3. Have students brainstorm other sounds without words that communicate information to humans. Ask students to make their own megaphone out of poster board or paper plates. Take students into an open space, such as the school playground or the school gymnasium. Have students work in pairs and stand at a distance away from each other. Ask students to test how well their megaphone helps their vocal projection and hearing capacity in communicating their signature sound from previous lessons or a new sound.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (43) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Evaluate: 1. Review with students the different ways that animals communicate: with vocal sounds or ‘songs,’ with tools, and through their environment. Ask students to write about what tools animals use to produce sound other than their vocal cords and about the importance of patterns in communication; what can patterns communicate to humans? 2. Ask students to make predictions about the similarities and differences in human and non-human animal communication in their science journals. Are there any ways that humans use their environment as a tool?

Life Science 8: resources

Vocabulary Rhythm: A regular temporal pattern of sounds or movements.

Websites Macaulay Library at Cornell University http://macaulaylibrary.org/index.do

Cornell Lab of Ornithology-All About Birds http://www.allaboutbirds.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1189

Beaver Slapping Tail http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4990494457017865662#doc id=-3774199605737749915

UBEATS Module 2/3 (44) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 9: Why do birds sing?

Introduction: Birds use vocalizations to communicate. Simple vocalizations are ‘calls’ and function to maintain contact among a flock, or alert others to danger or to potential food. ‘Songs’ are longer and Learning Outcomes: Students will more complex and are used to identify individuals, establish and defend recognize the differences between male and territory, and attract mates. In most species, males sing the songs, female birds and the purposes of bird songs. i.e. the doers (performers), and females are the listeners (audience/ Students will be able to explain how bird consumer). Often attracting a mate and establishing territory go hand songs are similar and different from human in hand – the male needs to establish a territory for food and safety of music. Students will become experts on one his future family and females want a mate that has established territory. bird from their geographic area. A male that can sing well will both be able to establish its territory in Science Process Skills: Observe, competition with other males and attract a mate. Communicate, Measure, Predict

Time: Two 45-minute sessions

Materials: Birdsongs by Betsy Franco and Steve Jenkins, bird sound recordings Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate (found at http://macaulaylibrary.org/index. E do), pictures of male and female birds 5 (found through Google or Wiki Images) Engage: Play for students the video clip of the male Technology Resources: Computer Bird of Paradise trying to attract a mate with internet access (http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/planet- earth-jungles-birds-of-paradise-display. html). Ask students to look for the tools that the bird uses to send a message (e.g., tail slapping, similar to the beaver in Life Curriculum Alignment: Science 8) and the patterns (e.g., in his call, in his tail slapping, and

National Science Education Standards in his movement). What is the bird trying to do?

Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to Explore: do scientific inquiry 1. Read the story Birdsongs by Betsy Franco • Understanding about scientific inquiry and Steve Jenkins to the students. Discuss • Employ simple equipment and tools to the different calls and words used to gather data and extend the senses describe each: Tat, tat, tat; coo, coo, coo;

Content Standard C: Life Science chip chip chip; eeyah eeyah; dee dee dee; caw caw caw. Play the • The characteristics of organisms students some bird calls and try to identify some of the words that • Organisms and their environments would match the songs or calls. • Science as a human endeavor 2. Ask students if the males or females are singing. Discuss how males are the singers in most species (the female northern cardinal

National Music Standards does sing too, and in the Americas, females and males do sing in the tropical zones) and that they are trying to attract a mate. Goal 5: The learner will read and notate 3. Look at male and female pictures of cardinals, ducks, red-winged music blackbirds, and peacocks. Ask students to predict which are male Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and and which are female. Discuss how males are brighter and females describing music are usually duller in color. Explain to students that this is known Goal 8: Understanding relationships as dimorphism. between music, the other arts, and continued disciplines outside the arts

UBEATS Module 2/3 (45) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home 4. Assign students a partner or small group, so that there are ten groups total. Assign each group a bird to imitate. They should try to vocalize the melodic contour, rhythm (e.g., with short and long patterns), timbre, and dynamics of the birds represented in Birdsongs. Re-read Birdsongs. Using the vocal imitations of each group, all student groups will collaborate to create a synthetic soundscape as each bird is introduced in the story. Inform students that a soundscape (see Concepts and Science Process Skills) is an interplay of all of the sounds in a given environment. All groups will represent the mockingbird that imitates everyone’s call. Introduce the Dawn Chorus and ask students to listen to the birds in early morning and understand this as their neighborhood soundscape. 5. Explain to students that birds in every environment use songs to attract a mate. Take students outside to listen to bird songs; encourage students to observe and try to determine where the bird is singing and where the potential mate may be. Are more than one bird singing the same song? Help tips for students listening for bird songs can be found at http://www.allaboutbirds.org/NetCommunity/Page. aspx?pid=1059. Allow students to explore the Learn Bird Songs website (http:// www.birdjam.com/learn.php) to hear songs from birds located within the school’s regional area. Bird songs on the site can be explored by region, as well as by bird. 6. Assign students, working with their partner or small group from above, a bird to imitate from the region. Remind students that an exact imitation is called ‘echo,’ or rote singing. The website has sound recordings students can listen to and imitate, as well as written pronunciations for the bird calls. Allow the students to perform their bird song for the class and have the class create a regional soundscape using the birdcalls from their area.

Explain: Bird species often use sound patterns to discern the males from females. In addition to the males doing most of the singing, and the males having more vibrantly-colored feathers than the female, female birds are also usually larger than male birds of the same species.

Birds have three primary reasons for singing – identifying who is in proximity, claiming territory, and attracting a mate. Although birds make other sounds, i.e. calls, the songs are the most noticeable because of their dynamics, melodies, timbres, rhythms, and repeated patterns. In our part of the world, males generally are the ones to sing and attract the mate, although there are circumstances where the female may also sing.

Researchers have found that female birds will listen for the quality of the song in selecting a mate. Additionally, Cornell University ornithologists have found that males with an ample supply of food are healthier and tend to sing more, suggesting that females may choose these healthy mates knowing that there is plenty of food (http:// www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/studying/birdsongs/whysing).

Remind students of the work of Dr. Jack Bradbury, who studies mating systems in animals, and Steve Nowicki, the ornithologist who primarily studies bird song. Both researchers spend a lot of time in the field, listening for birds just like the students did when they went out to hear bird songs at the school. Ask students to think of what sort of tools the scientists would take with them to the field to complete this work, such as recording equipment, as well as what sort of background information the two BioMusic researchers (see Wild Music website) researchers would need to have in order to be successful.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (46) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Elaborate: 1. Now that students have explored a variety of bird songs, inform them that they will now become resident ornithologists and specialize in a bird from the region. Have students work with their partner to research a bird from the area assigned by you or selected by the students. 2. Allow students to do research on their bird, including school yard observations and computer searches. The Cornell Ornithology Lab has excellent online resources for students, including an online bird guide (http://www.allaboutbirds. org/guide/search). 3. Students should research and present the following information on their bird species: a. Habitat b. Age span c. Food d. Potential threats e. Song (including patterns, pitch, timbre) Allow students to choose how to present their information to the class. 4. Because students are working outside, looking for birds, this is a wonderful opportunity to get students involved in citizen science. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology encourages classes to participate in bird counts and bird identification. Now that students are experts on a particular bird and have been outdoors several times, encourage students to record the number and species of birds that they see when the class is outside. The class can submit this information as researchers to the Cornell Lab and see how their data helps other scientists learn more about birds! For more information, visit http://watch.birds.cornell.edu/cub/static/index.

Evaluate: 1. Ask students to explain the ways to distinguish male birds from female birds in their journals. 2. Ask students to compare and contrast the similarities and differences between human music and bird songs, either in paragraph or Venn diagram form. 3. Assess student ornithology presentations for accuracy, particularly in describing the musical components of the bird song.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (47) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 9: resources

Vocabulary Animal Vocalization: An internally created sound used to communicate.

Calls: Simple, often short, animal vocalizations used to maintain contact, to signal danger or announce food.

Dimorphism: Occurring in two different forms.

Songs: Longer and more complex animal vocalizations used to identify individuals, establish and defend territory, and attract mates.

Soundscape: A composite of all of the sounds in a given environment.

Websites Macaulay Library at Cornell University http://macaulaylibrary.org/index.do

Planet Earth Bird-of-Paradise Video Clip http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/planet-earth-jungles-birds-of-paradise-display.html

Online Bird Guide http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/search

Learn Bird Songs Site http://www.birdjam.com/learn.php

Cornell Ornithology Lab http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/studying/birdsongs/whysing

Cornell Bird Count http://watch.birds.cornell.edu/cub/static/index

UBEATS Module 2/3 (48) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 10: Do animals copy sounds?

Introduction: Birds use calls and songs to attract a mate and to establish territory. Some species of bird are able to imitate other birds, using imitation as a way to attract mates or confuse other bird species. In this lesson, students will explore different species’ Learning Outcomes: Students will ability to mimic other bird species. identify and describe reasons that animals mimic one another.

Science Process Skills: Observe, Communicate, Measure, Predict Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate Time: One hour 5E Materials: Binoculars, bird field guides, Engage: nature journal, cameras, bird/animal calls Bring in samples of ‘calls,’ used by hunters and researchers to imitate animals, such as a turkey call, deer mouth call, or, if one cannot access such tools, use a train whistle. Demonstrate for the students how the call Curriculum Alignment: works and see if they can identify the animal it is meant to imitate. National Science Education Standards Ask students why people would want to imitate the calls of another species of animal. Explain that humans often use them for hunting Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to or scientific study, in addition to using them for musical inspiration. do scientific inquiry • Understanding about scientific inquiry Songs and calls are sometimes copied by animals that use mimicry, • Employ simple equipment and tools to or copying a song, in order to take an advantage in finding a mate gather data and extend the senses or defending territory. Humans may also mimic animal calls or Content Standard C: Life Science songs in order to honor the animals. • The characteristics of organisms • Organisms and their environments Explore: Content Standard F: Science in Personal and 1. Show students pictures of the Northern Social Perspectives Mockingbird, a bird species common • Characteristics and changes in populations year-round across the entire country. • Changes in environments Ask students if they have seen this bird • Science and technology in local challenges before and if they know what it is called. 2. Explain to students that they will be going on a bird walk to look National Music Standards for the Northern Mockingbird and to listen for its song. Remind Goal 3: Improvising melodies, variations, students of their bird watching tips from Lesson 9. Ask students and accompaniments to bring their journals so that they can write down the call of the Goal 4: Composing and arranging music Northern Mockingbird, if heard. Inform students that the within specified guidelines Northern Mockingbird likes perching on power lines, trees, Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and fences, and open ground, allowing for lots of possibility for describing music observation. Students may be interested in seeing the Northern Goal 8: Understanding relationships Mockingbird information page on Cornell’s website (http://www. between music, the other arts, and allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Mockingbird/id) so that they disciplines outside the arts know what the bird looks like and what types of behavior to expect.

continued

UBEATS Module 2/3 (49) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home 3. Take the students outside to sit and watch for mockingbirds. Ask students to record in their notebooks the songs of the bird that they hear, in addition to the pitch, rhythm, timbre, dynamics, and patterns of each song. Encourage the class to try observing at several locations throughout the school grounds so that they see a variety of mockingbirds. Using binoculars may help students know where to look and where to focus their listening.

Explain: After listening to the mockingbird and recording their observations, ask the class to share vocalizations they heard the mockingbird made. Did all of the bird songs sound the same? Encourage students to describe the rhythmic patterns, dynamics, melodic contour or pitch, and timbre of each song. In the event that mockingbirds are not seen, or that only one mockingbird song is heard, play students different samples of mockingbird songs from the Cornell Ornithology site (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/ guide/Northern_Mockingbird/sounds). Ask students to consider why the mockingbird would have so many different sounds, i.e. calls and songs, and if students know what the term ‘mocking’ means.

Explain to students that similar to humans copying animals, different animal species are also able to mimic, or copy, other animal species. The mockingbird is only one common example, but many other animals are also able to mimic.

Elaborate: 1. Have students explore other animals that may use mimicry and how they use mimicry to help them survive. Some examples may include: a. Blue Jays use their skill of being able to copy other birds for several reasons. The Blue Jay frequently mimics the calls of hawks, especially the Red- shouldered Hawk. These calls may provide information to other jays that a hawk is near. b. Elephants have the ability to mimic elephants from other groups. Elephants in India, having grown accustomed to people invading their space, have also been heard imitating diesel truck engines! Animals often mimic other species to send a warning to other animals that a predator might be near or to show off their wide vocal abilities to impress females. c. Others birds: Starling, mynah, parrot 2. Engage students in a debate on the use of mimicry by humans to hunt or research animals. What do students think of this? Why?

Evaluate: 1. Ask students to write at least three reasons animals would want to mimic one another’s calls or songs in their journals. 2. Ask students to write about the ways that humans can both hurt and honor animals through mimicry.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (50) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 10: resources

Vocabulary Mimic: Constituting an imitation for effect; copy.

Websites Mockingbird Information Guide http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Mockingbird/id)

Mockingbird Sound Samples http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Mockingbird/sounds

Mockingbird Illustration

Northern Mockingbird, by Bob Hines, United States Fish and Wildlife Service

UBEATS Module 2/3 (51) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home UBEATS Module 2/3 (52) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 11: How can Humans imitate the sounds of animals?

Learning Outcomes: Students will create a didgeridoo and imitate the sounds of animals. Introduction: Humans often draw on nature as an influence for Science Process Skills: Observe, music and art. In this lesson, students will study how Aboriginal Communicate, Measure, Predict tribes use objects found in nature to create a musical instrument Time: One hour called a didgeridoo. Students will create their own didgeridoos and use them to imitate sounds in nature. Materials: PVC pipe (3-4’ per student), glue, felt/feathers/sequins, acrylic paint, paintbrushes, water, bird/animal calls

Curriculum Alignment: Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate National Science Education Standards E Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to 5 do scientific inquiry Engage: • Understanding about scientific inquiry Bring in samples of ‘songs’ of birds • Employ simple equipment and tools to and whales, and used by scientists and gather data and extend the senses musicians. Ask students why people Content Standard C: Life Science would want to imitate the songs of • The characteristics of organisms another species of animal. • Organisms and their environments Content Standard F: Songs are sometimes copied by animals that use mimicry. Copying Science in Personal and Social Perspectives a song can be an advantage in finding a mate or defending • Characteristics and changes in territory. Humans may also mimic animal calls or songs in order populations to honor the animals. • Changes in environments • Science and technology in local challenges Explore: 1. Now that students have learned about National Music Standards different animals’ abilities to mimic Goal 2: Performing on instruments, alone other species, explain that humans and with others, a varied repertoire of often draw on nature for musical music inspiration. One way humans choose to imitate, or mimic, the Goal 3: Improvising melodies, variations, sounds of nature is through the use of tools or musical and accompaniments instruments. These tools allow you to make sounds that are Goal 4: Composing and arranging music different than your vocalizations, i.e. higher or lower frequency/ within specified guidelines pitch range, different timbre. Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and continued describing music Goal 8: Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts

UBEATS Module 2/3 (53) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home 2. Show students pictures of didgeridoos. Explain that they are one of the oldest instruments on earth and would be of interest to Jelle Atema, the biomusic researcher who examines ancient instruments. Allow students to make their own didgeridoos. Explain to students that once the didgeridoos are made, students can try to imitate nature sounds using the instrument.

How to make a didgeridoo: Resource: http://www.kinderart.com/multic/didgeridoo.shtml

Materials: • A length of PVC pipe (like the plumbers use). You can also use two cardboard wrapping paper tubes taped together. The length should be manageable. For adults, a didgeridoo is about 5 feet long. For children, 3 or 4 feet is great (depending on the height of the child). • Paint or markers (if you use PVC pipe, you will need to use acrylic paint). • Paintbrushes and water. • Glue (white glue or hot glue). • String, leather, feathers, beads and any other found objects.

Directions: 1. If you are using a PVC pipe, be sure to sand both ends of the pipe down so there are no rough edges. 2. Once you have a length of pipe or cardboard tubing, you are ready to decorate. Using paint or markers, decorate the didgeridoo using bright exciting colors. 3. You can glue all sorts of objects to your didgeridoo as long as you can still comfortably move it around. 4. Optional: If you wish, you can make a mouthpiece for your didgeridoo using beeswax. The way this is done is by dipping one end of your pipe or cardboard tube into melted wax, again and again until you build up an almost solid mass of wax with a small opening. 5. You can create a mouthpiece for your didgeridoo by rolling a piece of poster paper into a cone and gluing it to the end of your pipe or tube. 6. To play your didgeridoo, stand or sit with the instrument straight out in front of you, with one end resting on the ground. Place your mouth inside the tube (or on the beeswax mouthpiece) and make a loose motorboat sound with your lips.

Explain: Explain to students the history of the Aboriginal tribes of Australia. Aborigines are the indigenous people of Australia whose principal beliefs lie in animism. Animists believe that all aspects of nature, including the land, weather, plants, rocks, and animals have souls. To show respect towards these souls, many Aborigines imitate nature sounds in their music through the use of a special instrument called the didgeridoo.

Elaborate: Allow students to try to imitate animal vocalizations using their didgeridoos. Common sounds imitated in Aboriginal music include the dingo, kookaburra, and dogs barking. The didgeridoo can be a difficult instrument for students to grasp, so it is best for the teacher to be prepared with some simple steps to help students: http://www. didgeridoobreath.com/kb_results.asp?ID=32. Students may also enjoy watching a traditional Aborigine man demonstrate animal vocalizations using the didgeridoo: http:// laoutback-didgeridoo.blogspot.com/2008/07/ryka-demonstrates-didgeridoo-animal.html

UBEATS Module 2/3 (54) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 11: resources

Vocabulary Didgeridoo: A traditional Aboriginal woodwind used to create music.

Mimic: Constituting an imitation for effect; copy.

Websites Didgeridoo instructions http://www.kinderart.com/multic/didgeridoo.shtml

Didgeridoo playing tips http://www.didgeridoobreath.com/kb_results.asp?ID=32

Didgeridoo demonstration http://laoutback-didgeridoo.blogspot.com/2008/07/ryka-demonstrates-didgeridoo- animal.html

Didgeridoo Pictures

Didgeridoo is a traditional Aboriginal woodwind used to create music.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (55) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home UBEATS Module 2/3 (56) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 12: How Do Animals compete with man-made sounds?

Introduction: As humans, we create a wide variety of sounds not found in nature, e.g., the sound of a car engine or a jackhammer. As we develop more means of transportation and construction, and as we further encroach on the natural world, Learning Outcomes: Learners will will animals be able to communicate as effectively? In this lesson, recognize the wide variety of both students will keep track of the natural and man-made sounds naturally and man-made occurring they hear, comparing and contrasting the dynamics and pitches sounds in their environment. Learners of these sounds. Students will draw conclusions about animal will begin to understand how man-made adaptation to human development. sounds affect the ways in which animals communicate. Learners will also begin to understand that all animals, including humans, must adapt to their environment for survival.

Science Process Skills: Observation, Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate Classification 5E Time: One hour Engage: Inform students that they will be going Materials: Blindfolds (one per student), outside to identify sounds in their science journals, pencils, internet access, environment. Remind students that an animal sound recordings important part of scientific studies is to write down expected outcomes that a scientist might predict in a given situation. Give students a few minutes to record sounds that they think they will hear in their science journals, so that as Curriculum Alignment: scientists they will be able to look back on their work and see if National Science Education Standards their thinking changes. Ask students to share their thoughts and compile a class list of the sounds they think they could hear. Content Standard A:

Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry Ask students to think of the different reasons an animal would need • Understanding about scientific inquiry to communicate, based on their own knowledge and what they • Employ simple equipment and tools to have learned in previous lessons. Animals need to communicate in gather data and extend the senses order to locate their young/parents/group, find food, send warnings, Content Standard C: Life Science attract a mate, and mark their territory. Can students think of what • The characteristics of organisms might happen were animals unable to hear such communications? • Organisms and their environments

National Music Standards Explore: 1. Have students take their journals, Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and pencils, and blindfolds outside.Take describing music the students to a quiet place to sit and Goal 8: Understanding relationships listen for sounds. Give students several between music, the other arts, and minutes to sit and listen to the sounds around them, with the disciplines outside the arts blindfold on.

continued

UBEATS Module 2/3 (57) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home 2. Have students record the sounds in their journal by making up their own symbol system, and by including descriptions using terms such as pitch, rhythm, tempo, timbre, dynamics/amplitude, and patterns. 3. Give students several opportunities to sit and listen quietly. Because the students are young, it may be best to let them sit for a few minutes, then share, then sit again, rather than try to have the class keep quiet for long periods of time. 4. Once the class returns inside, have them show their original symbol systems and have them share what sound they heard. Ask students to imitate the sounds they heard; this will help them to identify pitch, tempo, rhythm, and dynamics. Ask students to share if they heard anything unexpected. 5. Ask the students to help divide the list into two categories: man-made sounds (anthropogenic) and natural sounds. Encourage students to do this in their notebooks and then compile a class list so students can check their work. Ask the students if they heard more natural or man-made sounds. Why do they think this is? 6. Lead a discussion with the students about the different sounds that they heard. Were the man-made sounds louder or softer than the natural sounds? Because all sounds require energy to create them, what were the sources of energy (e.g., motor, electric amplifier, etc.) for the man-made sounds? 7. Do they think that the man-made sounds affect how animals communicate in the wild? Why or why not? How did students feel when they had to rely on their ears instead of their eyes to recognize different creatures and sounds outdoors?

Explain: Inform students that a particular area of interest to scientists is how animals deal with humans invading their soundscapes and habitats. Ask students how they think scientists gather information about the animals – these ideas should include observation and captures. Scientists also look at data from previous scientists to see if there are any changes – much of science involves working with a team to learn new information. One such example is the study of the song sparrow, before and after California had an increase in the numbers of humans and man-made sounds. Scientists realized after listening to previous recordings that the sparrow had changed the sound of its call. The sparrow had to adapt, or change, to better its chances of survival (see the article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/metro/ urban-jungle/spring-2010/index.html?media=5).

Ask students why they think the sparrow had to change the sound of its call. Ask students to discuss these questions either in small groups or as a class. Many animals must adapt to be able to survive in a heavily populated area. Often, they change their call to avoid having to compete with man-made noises and other disturbances, such as those heard on the sound walk. The sparrow is just one example of how animals adapt to better fit within their environment. (See information about elephants imitating truck engines at: NATURE | VOL 434 | 24 MARCH 2005 | www.nature.com/ nature, p. 455-56.)

UBEATS Module 2/3 (58) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Elaborate: 1. Play for students some unusual animal calls, such as the kookaburra or the loon. Explain to students that both are samples of bird calls, similar to those studied in Life Science 6, 8, and 9 (Kookaburras laugh to mark territory and defend their space). Are students able to come up with any reasons as to why an animal would want to sound so unusual? 2. Ask students to think of the signature sound that they created in lesson seven. Inform students that they will test their signature call in several locations to determine how well it works for communication. Have the students start in the classroom, testing how well their call works as they stand near the group, then a short distance away, then farther away. How does their call need to change to keep up with the distance? How does it need to change to compete with added background noises, such as the sounds of beating on a drum, others talking, or with the window open? 3. Take students to other areas of the building, such as a crowded cafeteria, out by the road (at a safe distance), or to the library. How must the species adapt to communicate in all of these situations? Do the calls need to increase their volume, or amplification, or is changing the pitch of the call sufficient? What would happen if the animal did not adapt? For example, would it be beneficial to be a loud animal in an environment as quiet as the library? 4. If one student had a similar sound to another student, how can that interfere with a species’ ability to communicate? What must an animal do to adapt, or change, their call? Students may want to try adding a new sound to their call, or changing it slightly to discern their sound from the sound of another species.

Evaluate: 1. Have students write a story in their journals about an animal impacted by humans. How do the humans affect the animal? What must the animal do to survive? 2. Ask students to explain why an animal may have to adapt its sound to survive. 3. Have students think of three things people could do to lessen their impact on animal communication; have the students create a poster to put up at school sharing this information with others.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (59) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 12: resources

Vocabulary Adapt: To gradually change, behaviorally or physically, to be better suited for survival in one’s changing environment.

Anthropogenic: Man-made sounds.

Websites Article on adaptation http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/metro/urban-jungle/spring-2010/ index.html?media=5

UBEATS Module 2/3 (60) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 13: How Do Animal songs influence human music?

Introduction: A soundscape is a combination of the different sounds found in one ecosystem. Each sound occupies its own Learning Outcomes: The learner will ‘space’ within the ecosystem, allowing animals to communicate explain what a soundscape is. The learner with one another despite other local sounds. In this lesson, will be able to explain the influence that students will explore the creation of a soundscape through animal songs have on human music, and the integration of children’s literature, as well as examine how vice versa. birdsongs have influenced one musician’s musical pieces. Science Process Skills: Observation, Communicate, Measure, Predict

Time: One hour

Materials: The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate Carle, tissue paper, straws, plastic cups, E water, plastic combs, seeds in containers, 5 empty water bottles, balloons, kazoos, Engage: construction paper, local plant, animal, and Share the story The Very Quiet Cricket, bird field guides by Eric Carle, with the students. What do students notice about the different sounds that each invertebrate makes?

Curriculum Alignment:

National Science Education Standards Explore: 1. Inform the students that they will begin Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to by performing a soundscape, similar to do scientific inquiry the soundscapes studied in previous • Understanding about scientific inquiry lessons. Read students the book The • Employ simple equipment and tools to Very Quiet Cricket, by Eric Carle. Assign two to three students gather data and extend the senses each of the parts listed below to imitate and create some of the Content Standard C: Life Science sounds used by each animal. • The characteristics of organisms A) Cricket: use a plastic comb and run fingers through it • Organisms and their environments B) Locust: shake seeds rapidly in a container C) Praying mantis: rub hands together quickly Content Standard F: Science in Personal D) Worm: Bite an apple or crush an empty water bottle and Social Perspectives E) Spittle bug: blow bubbles in a cup of water with a straw • Characteristics and changes in populations F) Cicada: blow up a balloon and squeak the air out • Changes in environments G) Bumblebee: Kazoo • Science and technology in local challenges H) Dragonfly: wave tissue paper in the air I) Mosquito : quiet buzzing National Music Standards J) Luna Moth: make a construction paper fan and wave Goal 4: Composing and arranging music gently in the air within specified guidelines (substitute any items you would like) Goal 6: Listening to, analyzing, and 2. Allow the students time to explore their ‘instruments’ before the describing music reading. Practice with the class how you will read the story and Goal 8: Understanding relationships between how students should listen for their organism’s name to play music, the other arts, and disciplines the ‘instrument.’ outside the arts continued

UBEATS Module 2/3 (61) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home 3. As you read the story, students should play their parts accordingly. At the end of the reading, discuss whether any of these sounds reminded students of music or instruments. 4. Ask students to consider the role of aural (using hearing) observation in determining the diversity of an ecosystem. Could a scientist listen to the students performing The Very Quiet Cricket and identify some of the organisms in that environment? How would using aural observation have helped the students identify organisms in the school yard – for example, those high in the trees that they could not see? Can students think of other places on Earth where you can study the sounds of animals that cannot be seen (e.g., rainforests, oceans, caves)?

Explain: Students have just created a soundscape (see Concepts and Science Process Skills), or a composite of all of the sounds in a given environment. Scientists often use soundscapes as indicators of the biodiversity found within an ecosystem. Share with students the research of Bernie Krause, a bioacoustician who records animal sounds in different environments. He has noted that because each sound occurs uses different frequencies and timbres, animals can tell their own species from others, an essential survival tool. According to Bernie Krause’s research, each animal’s sound occupies a different frequency range. Another way of saying this is that each species vocalizations occupies it’s own sound-space. This is called the niche hypothesis. However, because someone might not be able to identify the frequency of the sound without special equipment, musical terms can help describe sounds without additional technology (see Niche Hypothesis, Concepts and Science Process Skills).

Musicians may also use soundscapes as an inspirational resource. Explain to the students that some musicians draw on the diverse sounds of nature to create music. One such musician is David Rothenberg, a clarinetist from England. Rothenberg was interested in the songs created by birds and would perform his clarinet at the National Aviary. To his surprise, the birds would actually sing along with the clarinet!

Elaborate: 1. Have students explore Rothenberg’s website, Why Birds Sing (http://www. whybirdssing.com/). Play for students the musical performance between Rothenberg and the thrush, a bird they should be familiar with after the Wild Music activity in Life Science 6. How do the bird and clarinetist interact with one another? Are there patterns? Is there call and response? How does the bird influence what the clarinetist is playing? Based on previous lessons, why do students think that the bird mimics Rothenberg? 2. Ask students to think of other ways that animals may inspire human music. Students may think of songs that incorporate the sounds of water or wind, such as relaxation music. Have the class listen to the songs on the section of the website entitled ‘Slowing Down the Sounds’ (http://www.whybirdssing.com/) and how similar the bird songs sound to human music. continued

UBEATS Module 2/3 (62) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home 3. Divide students into four groups. Assign each group one of the songs to listen to from the section entitled ‘What Musicians Have Done with Bird Song.’ Ask each group to consider the following information to share with the class: a. What human musical instrument is used to create the animal sound? b. Can students identify the environment that the animal lives in, based on the sound of the music? What clues do they hear? c. What patterns, pitches, timbre, rhythm, tempo, and dynamics are heard in the piece? How is this similar to the animal out in its natural environment? d. What other organisms can be ‘heard’ in the song? How does the song portray the biodiversity found in nature, if it does at all? What could the artist do to portray biodiversity in the piece? e. Does a piece of music need to mimic a species’ song in order to represent that species in a song? That is, can the music be inspired by something else in the species besides their vocalizations?

Evaluate: 1. Ask students to explain a soundscape in their journals. 2. Ask students to consider an environment that would inspire them to create music. What environment did the student select? Have students identify what animals, organisms, and environmental factors they would recreate and what instruments they would use to do so.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (63) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 13: resources

Vocabulary Biodiversity: The variety of all forms of life, from genes to species, through to the broad scale of ecosystems. The concept of biodiversity includes the idea that all of earth’s life forms are interconnected.

Soundscape: A composite of all of the sounds in a given environment.

Websites Rothenberg’s Bird Music Site www.whybirdssing.com

UBEATS Module 2/3 (64) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 14: can you make a symphony of sounds?

Learning Outcomes: The learners will Introduction: In this lesson, students will recreate the recognize the wide variety of sounds that are soundscape of one specific ecosystem, the rainforest. They will made in the wild. Learners will analyze the use their knowledge of both science and music to make decisions musical elements of an animal’s vocalization about how to musically recreate a rainforest. in order to mimic it. Learners will recognize the wide variety of sounds and instruments in a symphony orchestra.

Science Process Skills: Observation, Classification Engage Explore Explain Elaborate Evaluate Time: One hour 5E Materials: BBC’s Planet Earth Rainforest Engage: Series, The Symphony Gets Dressed by Play for students a small portion of Karla Kushkin, Berlioz the Bear by Jan Brett the BBC’s Planet Earth series. Select a portion of the film that displays Technology Resources: Computer with biodiversity, the great variety of species internet access, DVD player that live in an ecosystem. The Discovery Channel’s website (http:// dsc.discovery.com/tv/planet-earth/) provides brief clips of the video appropriate for introducing the activity, Ask students to create a list Curriculum Alignment: of the sounds that they hear in their science journals.

National Science Education Standards

Content Standard A: Abilities necessary to Explore: do scientific inquiry 1. Remind students of their discussions • Understanding about scientific inquiry of biodiversity and its importance in • Employ simple equipment and tools to the previous lesson. Inform students gather data and extend the senses that they will be creating a human- made example of biodiversity – a ‘symphony’ of jungle sounds. Content Standard C: Life Science A symphony is a combination of musical tools or instruments. • The characteristics of organisms Ask students to describe some of the sounds that they heard in • Organisms and their environments the film. Generate a master list of all the sounds they might hear in the jungle, including sounds not heard in the film. Make sure National Music Standards to assess the students’ knowledge of sound elements by asking Goal 1: Singing alone and with others questions such as: Goal 2: Performing on instruments, alone a. What is the pitch and amplitude of the sound? and with others, a varied repertoire of b. Does this sound move fast or slow (tempo)? music c. Can you hear any patterns in this sound (rhythm or pitch)? Goal 3: Improvising melodies, variations, d. How would you describe the timbre of the sound? and accompaniments Goal 4: Composing and arranging music Students may need additional assistance in identifying jungle within specified guidelines animals. ThinkQuest has an excellent website (http://library. Goal 8: Understanding relationships thinkquest.org/5393/) that shares information about and pictures of between music, the other arts, and common rain forest animals. disciplines outside the arts continued

UBEATS Module 2/3 (65) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home 2. Ask students if they are able to name some instruments in a symphony orchestra. Below is a list of orchestral instruments typically found in a symphony:

Strings Brass Percussion Woodwinds Violin Horn Timpani Oboe Viola Trumpet Cymbals Flute Cello Trombone Triangle Clarinet Double Bass Tuba Piano Bassoon Harp

Invite students to explore the San Francisco Symphony Website (http://www.sfskids. org/templates/instorchframe.asp?pageid=3) to hear the instruments and see what they look like. Divide students into four groups. Assign students one of the groups of instruments above to study on the site. Ask students to name the instruments from the group and to describe each instrument’s pitch range (high/low/medium), amplitude, and timbre. Students may create a chart similar to the following:

Instrument Group: BrASS pITCH/amplitude (dynamics) timbre

Horn

Trumpet

Trombone

Tuba

3. After doing research, have the group discuss the differences in sounds produced by each instrument, with a focus on music created by non-western cultures. How is this similar to the sounds produced within an ecosystem? 4. Ask students if they know how the rainforest gets its name. Some important sounds in many forests are not made by animals, but by other natural systems. In a rainforest, a very important feature that makes sound is rain. Ask two students to imitate the rain; they may do so by rubbing their hands together, clapping, stomping, or a mixture of these movements. 5. Assign each of the rest of the students an animal from the class list of jungle animals; if needed, have students work in teams of two. Ask the students to mimic the sound of their assigned animal, based on the video and website information. Allow each group the opportunity to demonstrate their call for the class. Encourage students to think of each call as a 'signature sound,' like the one created in lesson seven, and that they must pay attention to pitch, timbre, tempo, rhythm, and dynamics when performing their call.

UBEATS Module 2/3 (66) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Explain: Share with students Bernie Krause’s work on niche hypothesis, or the idea that every animal occupies a different sound space within an ecosystem. Studying all of the sounds within an ecosystem is an important way to measure its biodiversity. The diversity of frequencies, timbres, rhythms, tempos allows animals to communicate with one another and discern their sounds from the sounds of other species. Students studied the many different ways that animals hear in Life Science 2; encourage them to think again about the many ways that animals use their species’ specialties and the environment’s resources to communicate and why each animal having a different range would be beneficial in an ecosystem full of life.

Read a short story about the symphony orchestra, such as The Symphony Gets Dressed, by Karla Kushkin, or Berlioz the Bear by Jan Brett. Explain to the students that a symphony orchestra is like an ecosystem with many diverse sounds. It has the same great variety of sounds that the jungle has. The symphony uses dynamics, tempo, rhythm, pitch, timbre, and melodic contour to communicate information and emotion through the music. Each instrument has its’ own timbre so that its unique sound can be heard through the soundscape of the orchestra.

Elaborate: 1. Have students practice their performance of a jungle/rainforest. Identify animals the animals and natural elements they are performing. Encourage them to consider the dynamics for each of the species in the jungle – not all animals call at the same volume, or at the same time, just like the different elements of the rainstorm. 2. Have students try performing several times to establish an accurate imitation of the rainforest. Students could also make costumes to represent the animal they are imitating for the rainforest. 3. Once students practice, ask them to think about the sounds that they created. Does the space an animal occupies in the rain forest affect their call; for example, do birds that live in the upper canopy have a higher pitch than those on the forest floor? How must the animals adapt their calls to communicate through such dense trees and vegetation? Encourage students to write their thoughts and ideas down in their science journals.

Evaluate: 1. Ask students to create a Venn diagram comparing the rain forest to an orchestra. 2. Have the students perform their rain forest for other classes. Can the other students identify the sounds heard during the performance?

UBEATS Module 2/3 (67) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home Life Science 14: resources

Vocabulary Musical instrument: An object created to make a sound or enhance a sound.

Symphony orchestra: A large group of brass, percussion, woodwind, and string instruments that play musical compositions.

Websites Planet Earth Jungle Series http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/planet-earth/

Think Quest Jungle Animals http://library.thinkquest.org/5393/)

San Francisco Symphony http://www.sfskids.org/templates/instorchframe.asp?pageid=3

UBEATS Module 2/3 (68) https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/ubeats/home