Sound Sketches

  Starting this week, I'm beginning to learn about sound for my science class.  Sounds are made by vibrations.  The amount of time between vibrations determines how high or how low the sound's pitch is and what the sound "sounds" like.  Sounds also differ between pleasant and unpleasant noises.  Jackhammers make an unpleasant noise and classical music makes a pleasant noise. On Tuesday, my mom and I went around to a few locations here in Richmond to see how their sound environments differed.   To grade the four locations we visited on how loud or quiet they were, we used a scale from zero to five.  Zero was absolute silence and five was harmful to hearing.

   First we went to the Richmond International Airport.  It was full of noises like buzzers, telephones, and people talking.  I gave it a four to five on our sound scale.  It could have been louder if it had been a holiday when lots of people travel or if it was summertime and everyone was taking a vacation.

A quiet day at the Richmond Int'l Airport

   Our next destination was Belle Isle where the rapids in the James River were loud and the current was strong.  It had rained the day before so there was a lot more water in the river.  We gave this destination a three to four rating because the river was so loud.

Looking out over the James River

 

Chillin' and enjoying the quiet at Chimborazo

Then we went to Chimborazo Park in Church Hill where there was some traffic noise but there was a lot of quiet natural noise.  It was so quiet that I was able to locate a woodpecker.  Chimborazo was our quietest site and I gave it a one to two rating.














   My final site was my own backyard which had some car noise from the street and the sound of people talking as they walked by the house.  I gave it a two rating even though it would be much louder in the summer when more people and more animals would be out and about.  Here's a video clip of how my yard sounds in the fall:

Looking at my patio and the brick wall next door

   In doing this sound project, I learned that there are lots of different sounds that occur during different times of day and throughout the year.  Earlier in the school year, I conducted a biodiversity project and discovered that the more biodiversity there is in an environment, the more natural sounds there are (like birds chirping or squirrels chattering).  In that project we visited nature parks, urban gardens, and corporate parks in the city. I learned how important it is to incorporate green spaces in metropolitan areas in order to beautify the city, provide living places for animals, and to give people quiet space to relax, have fun, and connect with nature.  The sounds in an environment affect how people feel about that environment.  If there is a lot of man-made noise, people and animals will like the environment less.  If there is a lot of natural sound, people and animals are more likely to want to go there.  Animals are more likely to live in biodiverse areas that are relatively quiet, and this has a positive affect on the people who enjoy the quiet of these natural habitats.