UM students help map the soundscapes of nature
This is the first in a series of articles featuring the experiential capstone course for undergraduate students in UM's Parks, Tourism, and Recreation Management program.
What sensations do you associate with being in the great outdoors? Is it the smell of pine trees, the long trails that wind ahead of you, or the sound of birds chirping in the canopy above?
Recent studies have found that people connect with nature through sight, but also through smells and sounds — making sensory engagement on multiple levels important for experiencing the outdoors. Last Fall, students in the UM Parks, Tourism, and Recreation Management (PTRM) program tuned into the importance of soundscapes for both people and wildlife through their capstone project.
A soundscape is essentially an acoustic environment. Soundscapes are comprised of acoustic resources such as natural and cultural sounds and depend on how often and how loudly noises are being transmitted, and the structural features of the surroundings. All these components serve as important factors as they influence the overall experience of sound.
The PTRM capstone course, which takes place in the Fall, is designed to emphasize the importance of practical skills development, community engagement, and professional connections. Each project has a professional partner in the community to help the students understand the real-world application of their work. For the soundscapes project the students worked with Olga Helmy, science delivery specialist at the Leopold Aldo Wilderness Research Institute. They also worked with some of the research that biology researcher Kathy Zeller was doing work for the Insititute on soundscapes in wilderness and recreation areas.
“As a federal agency, we have a responsibility to foster the next generation of researchers and provide them with the context for how their work might be used in practical application,” said Helmy.
Zeller’s work was aimed at understanding how recreation noise might disturb animals within a wilderness environment. To find out, she set up microphones and speakers in national forest areas to blast human sounds such as mountain biking, talking or chatting, and music. With remote cameras, she then filmed how animals react— monitoring what happened as sounds got closer, to mimic people approaching, to see how animals responded. The students took Zeller’s research, as well as many other soundscapes studies and had to come up with the best way to present this information to the public.
According to students Roger Moore, Oliver Vernon, and Benjamin DeBar, Marrisa Acosta, and William Estrada the class involved a lot of fieldwork and research, including interviews with experts across professions, including USFS, NPS, and University of Montana Outdoor Recreation and Wildland Management. The students decided to utilize a method known as GIS story mapping because of its versatility. By taking this audience-forward approach to addressing noise pollution in wild landscapes, they hoped to help more people understand why soundscapes are important.
“We often don’t think about soundscapes in resource management. But there's a lot of innovative work being done with them and how sound impacts wildlife visitor experiences,” said Jenn Thomsen, PTRM Program Director and Associate Professor for the capstone class. “The communication piece was the biggest part of this project and with story mapping, students had an opportunity to synthesize research and convey it in a meaningful way to diverse audiences.”
The students say there is a huge intersection of soundscapes and public policy, with wildlife interactions with human-made sounds becoming very prevalent in land management. This is especially true in busy National Parks where they are classifying different levels of noise pollution, which include road and aircraft noise. In fact, the Federal Aviation Administration is even rerouting planes to reduce noise pollution in park areas through partnership efforts with the NPS.
The students also found out that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has policies regarding noise control, but that it is often the responsibility of states and local municipalities. Missoula County has its own set of laws and policies defining decibels, how to measure them, how they interact with the environment, and how managers can help control sound through zoning.
Finally, their comprehensive analysis included a component of community health. There are many studies that prove the importance of green spaces in the urban landscape in helping to bolster mental health and wellbeing, and the students say that soundscapes are an integral part of these experiences. Their research on the gradient of sounds in Missoula specifically revealed the importance of our city’s connection to natural landscapes and the impact of urbanization on the local wildlife.
Miranda Foster, Current UM PTRM Graduate Student and Teaching Assistant and TA for the soundscape capstone project, emphasized the value of this field work for the students.
“Work in PTRM tends to be applied research, and this capstone class gave the students a hands-on experience of how science translates into the real world,” Foster said. “It really helps to make for applicability of skills in the job market as well.”
The students reverberated this sentiment. All the students said the capstone helped them to understand the value of communicating data to a public audience, and the satisfaction of seeing their hard work being used in recreational management.
“The capstone was super valuable in helping me become more comfortable in going out and figuring out a project and knowing the steps to follow to complete it in a professional setting,” said DeBar.
The student's story map project was the first time USFS and UM PTRM Students collaborated on an emerging way to communicate soundscapes. All the students say that the capstone experience is inspiring their next steps after graduation, heading into the career world with a newfound grasp on the value of group work and an intimate understanding of how scientific processes work.