I hope you are all staying well, and adjusting to all of the social distancing recommendations from health professionals. All without going “cabin crazy.”
It occurred to us that you might want to dig into some sound activities in lieu of surrendering to couch potato activities. So while we weather the pandemic over the next few weeks (hopefully only), we’ll introduce you to things you can set your kids on to keep them out from underfoot while you work, or you can check out yourselves should you want to work on your “screen tan.”
A few years back we were commissioned to build a screen-interactive “Sounds of the Bay” exhibit for Palo Alto nature-interpretive center “Environmental Volunteers.” The museum and our “Sounds of the Bay” interactive was targeted to elementary school aged kids. (You will probably need to adjust the size to fit well on a screen.)
There is also our Sound Library, for any age, which has animal, as well as anthropogenic sounds and descriptions of sounds and noises to be found in the sea.
And if you want to listen to some amazing soundscapes, our Arctic Ocean Recordings can be mesmerizing, or just great background music. These were recorded by a hydrophone dropped off the lead ice in Utqiagvik, Alaska in April – at the peak of bowhead whale and ice seal breeding season, and provided to us by the folks at Cornell’s Macaulay Library.
Their library is the place for animal sounds, so you might want to explore there as well.
We listened to these Arctic Soundscapes in the office for weeks on end while we made the Flash videos. This proved really relaxing background music, but occasionally some really weird sound would emerge and snap our heads. What was that sound!
Here is to hoping you are staying healthy, catching up on some good reading, getting outside a bit, or exploring the sounds of the sea!