MoMA’s Share Your Silence map is an interactive display of recordings of silence around the world. We often think of silence as being devoid of all sound, but that is often not the case. The hum of a lightbulb or the rustling of leaves often appears in the background of silence. MoMA’s Share Your Silence captures those hidden noises in silence at places all over the world. You can contribute to the map here.

If the silence of MoMA’s Share Your Silence is too much, listen to the sounds of nature on the Nature Sound Map. Nature Sound Map provides a wonderful way to explore the soundscape of the natural world. On the Nature Sound Map you will find placemarks containing recordings of nature. The recordings have been added to the project by professional sound recordists. Some of the recordings you will find feature the sounds of just one animal, the sounds of a jungle, sounds of a marsh, sounds of a storm, or sounds of oceans and rivers.

Applications for Education
You and your students could create your own sound maps by using a combination of Sound Cloud and Thinglink. To do this have your students record sounds using SoundCloud. SoundCloud can be used to record through a laptop, on an Android device, and on an iPad. After capturing sounds through SoundCloud have students place them on an ThingLink image of a map. The ThingLink remix option allows you to upload one image to start the project then have students make their own copies to edit. People viewing the completed project will be able to click the SoundCloud icons on the map to listen to the recordings.

H/T to Maps Mania for the info about Share Your Silence.