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Sound Travels is a US-based, federally-funded collaboration between sound researchers, learning researchers, and educational practitioners working to understand the role of soundscapes on free-choice, out-of-school learning experiences. In this paper, members of our research team describe how we have combined approaches from acoustic ecology and visitor studies to navigate the affordances and challenges of studying sound across several complex leisure settings (a science museum, a botanic garden, a park, and a zoo). As an exploratory and transdisciplinary project, our initial work has involved significant deliberation about how to meaningfully and effectively gather data in highly variable acoustic environments, as well as what types and characteristics of sound data are most salient to understanding visitors’ experiences of sound. In addition to grappling with these technical questions, we have also worked to ensure that our research does not detract from positive visitor experiences in these spaces and that it directly engages perspectives from practitioners and visitors about cognition, affect, and culture. We will describe the logic of the methods we have used to date (stationary ambient recordings, a post-experience visitor questionnaire, and a “sound search” in which visitors record video clips), as well as our plans for further study. 

Predators frequently must detect and localize their prey in challenging environments. Noisy environments have been prevalent across the evolutionary history of predator–prey relationships, but now with increasing anthropogenic activities noise is becoming a more prominent feature of many landscapes. Here, we use the gleaning pallid bat, Antrozous pallidus , to investigate the mechanism by which noise disrupts hunting behaviour. Noise can primarily function to mask —obscure by spectrally overlapping a cue of interest, or distract —occupy an animal's attentional or other cognitive resources. Using band-limited white noise treatments that either overlapped the frequencies of a prey cue or did not overlap this cue, we find evidence that distraction is a primary driver of reduced hunting efficacy in an acoustically mediated predator. Under exposure to both noise types successful prey localization declined by half, search time nearly tripled, and bats used 25% more sonar pulses than when hunting in ambient conditions. Overall, the pallid bat does not seem capable of compensating for environmental noise. These findings have implications for mitigation strategies, specifically the importance of reducing sources of noise on the landscape rather than attempting to reduce the bandwidth of anthropogenic noise. 

At Carlsbad Caverns National Park, park rangers blended traditional personal interpretation with technology to showcase park-based research and to advance science literacy among visitors. Interpreters and Scientists Working on Our Parks (iSWOOP) provided interpreters with professional development and a selection of visualizations from scientists’ research on Brazilian free-tailed bats and their habitat at Carlsbad Caverns. After using tablets containing these visualizations for informal interpretive interactions, the interpreters responded to an open-ended survey. The authors examined interpreters’ responses, finding that interpreters regarded tablets as helpful in accomplishing several interpretive goals, especially in particular locations. Interpreters were strategic in initiating and sustaining interactions. Visitors’ reactions were positive; nevertheless, there were challenges indicating that this new form of interpretation is worthy of further research.