Teacher's Note
Students will learn more about hearing protection once they start working, but this is something they need to know about now. With the popularity of MP3 devices the danger of hearing loss among children has become a serious concern for health professionals. Students should be aware of the danger to their hearing in the everyday activity of listening to music with earphones.
The Listen to Your Buds website is an entertaining way for your students and their parents to learn about MP3 players and hearing loss. You could visit the site and download, copy and hand out one of the bookmarks that have been designed to appeal to young people. They provide the URL of the site. Students could take one of the bookmarks home and show it to their parents so they can look at the site together.
Listen To Your Buds is a consumer awareness campaign by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association about the potential risk of hearing loss from unsafe usage of personal audio technology.
Visit the Listen To Your Buds website to find attractive and easy-to-use resources for students, parents and educators:
Teacher's Note
The learning expectations for Grades 4 to 6 require that students learn about sound, sources of sound, the effects of noise on people and how to control harmful noise. Noise and noise control are both social and workplace issues. This activity provides an opportunity for students to learn that exposure to harmful noise levels can be controlled if we understand when it's dangerous.
The handout on the next page provides some basic facts about noise that your students need to know to protect their hearing. This could form the basis of a class discussion.
The exercise on page 68 called 'Too much noise?' asks students to read a chart with noise levels for some common sounds (data from The Canadian Hearing Society) and decide whether the individuals in the six scenarios should be using hearing protection. The ability to make the right choice could help preserve their hearing in the future.
Answers: John, Susie, Edgar, Augusto
Note: Before starting this exercise you might find it useful to try the 'Bright Ideas.' One provides a good way to help students understand the seriousness of hearing loss. The second is a way to illustrate hands-on how hearing protection works.
Silent charades Write a number of statements on pieces of paper. Have each student select a statement and act it out for the class. Ensure no one makes a sound. When someone thinks they know what the person is doing, they must write it down, raise their hand and show it to the person to see if they got it right. The person who is doing the charade should silently indicate if they got it right or wrong. After the activity, ask the class how difficult it was for them not to speak during the charade. Discuss the challenges faced by a hearing impaired person in everyday situations.
Hearing protection demonstration If you are able to purchase some ear plugs or a set of ear muffs, you could demonstrate how to use hearing protection and have some of the students try it. Since you can only use one set of ear plugs per person class participation will depend on your budget.
The Canadian Hearing Society's website provides a wealth of knowledge on topics related to hearing.