Animal Sounds
This storyline investigates the various sounds that surround young people and the causes for those sounds. For these young learners, the storyline focuses on animals and how different species make different sounds for different reasons. Baby animals can use sound to communicate needs like when they are hungry or adult animals can communicate to each other about danger. This unit makes students wonder, “How and why do animals make different sounds?”
The storyline begins with the teacher asking students to think about whether they or their family has any special sounds or words they use to get each other’s attention. Students are asked, “How did you learn to make that sound?” Students participate in a quiet listening walk determining what types of sounds we can hear within and around our school. Students begin to think about how animals make sounds and communicate.
Students then make observations about similarities and differences of baby and adult animals of the same species, recognizing that they have the same characteristics, but on a different scale. After seeing differences between species, students will compare the sounds that animals make with everyday sounds, how those sounds are learned, and how different sounds influence behavior.
After hearing how different animals make different sounds, students then begin to understand the causal story behind these sounds. Most importantly, students begin to understand that sounds are made when things vibrate and that different vibrating materials make different sounds.
Students are then asked to apply their knowledge of vibrations to constructing their own device or instrument that makes sounds similar to animals. After completing this design challenge, students make conceptual connections between a stuffed animal and the sounds it might make by modeling the vibrations made by their instrument.
