A new website called Earth Garden lets people explore the world through natural sounds. Users can look at a digital globe and select different places to hear real outdoor audio recordings.
The website plays environmental sounds from many regions. For example, listeners can hear ocean waves on remote islands in the Atlantic Ocean, crickets in Tanzania, or rain falling on the streets of Manhattan. The globe can also rotate automatically and switch to new sounds as it moves across the map.
All the audio clips come from Freesound, an online collection of sound recordings. Because many different people recorded the clips, the audio volume and quality can vary. Most of the available recordings currently come from the United States and Europe.
Users can also click a button to play soft background music along with the natural sounds. The project gives people a relaxing way to experience different places around the world using their ears.