SOUNDSCAPES OF SOUTHWEST ASIA: MUSIC & THE ENVIRONMENT
Learning Description
Students will investigate how environmental factors such as drought, desertification, and resource availability affect people in Southwest Asia. They will apply their understanding by collaboratively creating a musical soundscape that represents an environmental issue, using elements of music to communicate meaning and reinforce geography vocabulary.
Learning Targets
"I Can" Statements
“I Can…”
- I can describe environmental challenges in Southwest Asia.
- I can express the meaning of geographic vocabulary.
- I can create music that represents an idea or problem.
- I can explain how sounds connect to real-world issues.
Essential Questions
- How do environmental conditions shape human life and settlement in Southwest Asia?
- How can students use music to represent and communicate environmental challenges?
Georgia Standards
Curriculum Standards
Grade 7:
SS6G7 – Describe the impact of location, climate, physical characteristics, distribution of natural resources, and population distribution on Southwest Asia.
Arts Standards
Grade 7:
MSGM7.CR.1 Improvise melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
MSGM7.CR.2 Compose and arrange music within specified guidelines.
MSGM7.PR.2 Perform a varied repertoire of music on instruments, alone and with others.
MSGM7.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.
MSGM7.CN.1 Connect music to the other fine arts and disciplines outside the arts.
South Carolina Standards
Curriculum Standards
Grade 7:
Standard 2: Analyze the cultural, economic, environmental, physical, political, and population geographies of contemporary Asia.
7.2.2.ER Identify climate and vegetation regions of Asia and the spatial distributions and patterns of natural resources, including the impact of their location on human activities.
7.2.3.HS Explain Asia’s current human population distributions and patterns, and use geographic models to compare the conditions driving migration and demographic change.
Arts Standards
Anchor Standard 1: I can arrange and compose music.
Anchor Standard 2: I can improvise music.
Anchor Standard 4: I can play instruments alone and with others.
Anchor Standard 6: I can analyze music.
Anchor Standard 9: I can relate music to other arts disciplines, other subjects, and career paths.
Key Vocabulary
Content Vocabulary
- Arable – Land that is good for farming and growing crops
- Desertification – When fertile land slowly turns into desert because of drought, climate change, or poor land use
- Drought – A long period of time with little or no rainfall
- Resource Management – The careful use and protection of natural resources like water, land, and oil
- Urbanization – The growth of cities as more people move from rural areas to live and work there
Arts Vocabulary
- Body percussion – Percussive sounds made with the body, such as slaps, stomps, snaps, etc.
- Soundscape – A piece of music that uses sounds to create a picture, place, or story
- Rhythm – Long and short sounds and silence
- Tempo – The speed of the beat
- Dynamics - Loud and soft sounds; volume
- Texture – How many layers of sound are happening at the same time (thin = few sounds, thick = many sounds)
- Timbre (TAM-ber) – The distinctive quality of sounds; the tone color or special sound that makes one instrument or voice sound different from another
- Steady Beat – A constant, even pulse in music
- Pattern – A sound or rhythm that repeats
- Silence (Rest) – A moment with no sound, used for effect or contrast
- Layering – Adding different sounds on top of each other to build complexity
Materials
- Map of Southwest Asia
- Audio clips of desert wind, water, city sounds, middle eastern instruments
- Classroom percussion and/or found sounds
- Chart paper / smartboard
- Sticky notes
Instructional Design
Opening/Activating Strategy
- Ask how students are arriving/feeling in their body and begin with them echoing the teacher who models body percussion, vocal percussion (drum-set with voice), creating sound that might mirror the desert, water, urbanization sounds.
Work Session
- Play audio clips and ask:
- 1) What place do you imagine
- 2) What might the environment be like there?
- 3) How might weather and land affect people living there?
- Have students describe the sounds using musical vocabulary, such as texture and timbre. Have students experiment with sounds that they can make with their bodies that could imitate the audio clips.
- Locate Southwest Asia on map.
- Introduce the following environmental challenges: drought, arable land, desertification, resource management, urbanization
- Divide class into four groups each with an environmental challenge theme.
- Each group creates a 30-45 second soundscape (no words - telling the story with sound).
- Have students use their imagination by talking through a made-up story first. Remind students that stories should have a beginning, middle, and end, just like songs.
- Then, students in their groups, “tell” their story through sound only using musical elements such as rhythmic and dynamic choices. They can use body percussion, found sounds, vocal percussion, voices etc.
- Stories can be serious, funny, moralistic etc. provided they represent that group’s environmental challenge of drought, desertification, urbanization, or resource management
Closing Reflection
- Each group performs their story. After each group performs, other groups make educated guesses about what story is told based on the theme.
Assessments
Formative
- Observe group soundscapes for accurate representation of environmental challenges.
- Observe proper use of vocabulary in discussion.
Summative
- Students can explain the environmental challenges in Southwest Asia based on performances.
Differentiation
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Accelerated:
Remedial:
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Credits
Ideas contributed by: Lyn Koonce
*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.
Revised and copyright: April 2026 @ ArtsNOW