Sons del Cel
The sounds that heal us
Description
Sons del Cel is a cross-disciplinary educational project promoted by Palau de la Música Catalana, the Catalan Meteorological Service (MeteoCat), the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), and the Natural Science Museum of Barcelona, with the support of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) of the Ministry of Science and Innovation.
It is an educational pathway that, from a multidisciplinary perspective, seeks to address a global issue affecting society as a whole: noise pollution.
From the artistic, scientific, environmental, and health fields, children will develop skills and knowledge that will enable them to become aware of their sound environment, with the aim of finding strategies to reduce noise pollution in the classroom and the school. In other words, through this project we will foster competency-based learning that is transferable, meaningful, lasting, productive, and functional.
The project runs throughout the school year. Participating students take part in two workshops on sound exploration and musical creation at school, attend a concert-performance at the Palau de la Música Catalana, carry out a sound recording workshop in the Botanical Garden, and finally participate in a closing summit. All workshops are delivered by educators or artists linked to the partner institutions, and periodically additional materials are provided so that schools can continue deepening the contents within the areas of music, science, or tutoring.
Ce que nous travaillerons
Capacities
- Ability to listen to and observe our environment more actively and consciously.
- Ability to empathize with others and with future generations.
- Ability to analyze, think, create, and transform our environment.
Knowledge
- Artistic, scientific, linguistic, environmental, social, and health knowledge.
Purposes
- Raise awareness of the sound environment and the problems that noise pollution generates in our society to seek shared solutions for improvement.
- Actively engage to make the school a space of silence, dialogue, peace, and develop the capacity for attention and conscious listening that connects us with the world around us.
Justification
- Barcelona is the noisiest city in the Western world; noisier than Paris, London, or New York.
- According to the WHO, noise pollution is the second most harmful environmental element for human health, as it causes stress, sleep disorders, poor performance, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity, among other issues, and it negatively impacts the cognitive development of children. Exposure to certain levels of noise pollution hinders neural connections and causes cognitive deterioration in children.
- School is a space for socialization and learning where children spend a significant part of their lives with the goal of developing holistically. For this development to happen, the school must ensure a healthy sound environment (calm, quiet, respectful) and, at the same time, promote learning situations that facilitate the practice of contemplative listening to sound and silence. Ambient noise and the constant movement of children in the classroom become disruptive elements that hinder the child's ability to develop sustained and adequate attention.
- Music, silence, and contact with nature can help us become aware of this issue. Listening to quality music or the sounds of nature more consciously can help us reconnect with ourselves and with our innate ability to listen, observe, and create.
Direction
- Gemma Canadell
Information
Primary education: 5th and 6th
Days: Sound experimentation workshop (October, November, December 2025); Attendance at the Tocats X l’Orgue concert on February 23, 2026; Visit to the Barcelona Botanical Garden (March
2026); Musical creation workshop (April 2026) and Closing Summit (May 2026).
Venue: At the same school (2 workshops); Palau Concert Hall, Barcelona Botanical Garden.
Sessions: morning or afternoon
Price (group rate for class 18/30 students): €250
Duration: Long course, 25-26 academic year