How music can used at the Environmental Education in Greece and everywhere.

Eirini Kateina 23/11/2012

As a powerful influence in our society, music is there for the taking as a tool that can make both teaching and learning more interesting.
Acoustic Ecology or Environmental Education through the music doesn't really exist in educational system of Greece but there are some lectures, workshops or congresses that trying to show to the teachers the important role that music can have in the environmental education.

The Role of Music in Environmental Education
With listening attentive and selective listening we can alter our perception of the environment around us. Turning students into reflective listeners and watchers we give them the tool to formulate a better acoustic and visual environment. Thus, we aim to turn children into people aware of and reflective on their environment, natural and artificial.

Acoustic Ecology
Acoustic Ecology concern about the relationship between sound scape and listener and how the nature of this relationship makes out the character of any given sound scape, puts it squarely into the centre of ecological thinking.

Noise pollusion
Noise is the “unwanted sound” that doesn't belong to the sound scape. → The study of soundscape is the subject of acoustic ecology. The increasing of the noise at the soundscapes have a negative effect to the psychological field of humans. According to Schafer, the only way to face this is by teaching the children to respect the environment and to be careful with the sounds that they produce.

Some ideas for music into environmental education
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Explore how various orchestral instruments mimic sounds of nature: timpani as thunder, a harp as flowing water, a flute as a bird. Try to draw the sound (event) you are hearing on a walk in the nature. Or just play music and have students draw their mind's scene. Use natural objects to make sounds. Talk about how the music made them feel. Does nature make them feel that way? What does that say about the role of forests, water and

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References
Doug Ramsey,The Role of Music in Environmental Education: Lessons From the Cod Fishery Crisis and the Dust Bowl Days (Canada: Brandon University) Zoe Dionyssiou – Marina Papasotiriou, “I listen to a panting, I draw a sound”, Introducing acoustic ecology to teachers, (Ionian University, 2011) Soundscape,The Journal of Acoustic Ecology, Volume 1, N. 1, (Spring 2000)
Barbara Alge, http://www.soundscapesrostock.de/

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/education/teachers/activities/art.html