Music with Plants: Cultivating Bonds Between Grade-Schoolers and Nature Through Sound Design

Abstract

A growing need for environmental awareness requires sensitive strategies to help us rethink the way interactions transform our habitat. Modern cities are now faced with the progressive vanishing of green spaces, resulting in fewer opportunities for children to play (Costa & Costa, 2012; Ruggles, 2017). This work proposes a musical approach to nourishing the bonds between elementary-school students and nature. Since plants and humans experience life in very different time frames, humans might mistakenly perceive plants as quiet and motionless living-beings (Ruggles, 2017; Mancuso & Viola, 2016). The ability to sense elements of their surroundings to which we are unaware of, makes plants invaluable allies towards a more conscious relationship with the planet we share. Fields like acoustic ecology and plant bioacoustics have recently started to bloom, inspiring sound artists to discover the vegetal world combining science and the arts (Patrão, Harvard University: Ex-centric Music Studies Conference, 2018). In education, by the means of play, plants might perform a significant role in stimulating the senses and the connection between children inhabiting increasingly artificial cities and the world of living things that surrounds them (Costa & Costa, 2012). This dissertation suggests that music has the potential to intermediate these interactions and provide meaningful experiences to the young participants by bringing to common ground digital technology, music and plants. Being that music itself is thought to have capability to strengthen bonds between people, promote and maintain group cohesion. It is "the social glue that enhances cooperation and strengthens feelings of unity" (Honing, 2018).