The Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development recently received a grant from the National Park Service to launch the Protected Areas Research Collaborative (PARC) Listening Lab. It is the sole lab assisting the National Park Service Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division with inventorying and monitoring sounds collected in national parks across the United States.
Increased levels of human-made sound could impact the mating, habitat patterns and feeding habits of wildlife. Run in partnership with the Graduate Program in Acoustics in the Penn State College of Engineering, analyses from this lab help scientists understand how changes in natural or human-made sound affect the quality of visitor experiences and the health of ecosystems. This lab’s work also helps parks identify their baseline level of sound and how it may change over time.
