Eavesdropping on Elephants
Eavesdropping on Elephants: How Listening Helps Conservation by Patricia Newman
The Eavesdropping on Elephants – Teacher’s Guide features 10 activities that target national science, English, mathematics, and art education standards for grades 4-6. This website provides summary background information, along with digital content that complements the printable guide.
Watch the video of two elephants greeting each other below, then discuss the questions found in the teacher’s guide.
Download the K-12 Science Process Poster to familiarize students with the science process and aid the activity.
Watch the three elephant behavior videos below (also available on the Elephant Listening Project website) and answer the observational questions found in the teacher’s guide. You may also wish to visit the Macaulay Library for sound recordings and sample spectrograms of various other species.
The following sites are great examples of programs researchers use to create spectrograms from audio recordings:
If you’re looking to explore spectrogram creation software with your class, we recommend trying out Raven Lite (a free software program for beginners, students, and educators) as well as this helpful spectrogram view explanation page provided by Audacity.