Engaging with University of Oregon students

In January and February 2022, the entire team gave a presentation to and heard from students in Jon's MUS 479/579 Data Sonification course at the University of Oregon. The Data Sonification course involves undergraduate and graduate students and explores data sonification broadly, including authentic datasets, sonification methods, auditory display, accessibility, data mapping, and even grant writing. Students develop their own sonification projects with Kyma, and many mixed their auditory displays and data narratives in their digital audio workstation (DAW) of choice, namely Logic and Ableton.

In the team's presentation and throughout the course, students learned about the NSF project, unpacked Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Data Nuggets science topics, and eventually shared their own sonification and auditory display work with the team. For many students, this was their first time engaging with sonification, and they had an opportunity to see the broader impacts of sonification on research and education. Students boldly took creative risks in their sound-making and asked critical questions of the data and listener.