UFMG Architecture School educational experience on acoustics

Our main undergraduate course is Acoustics of Environments: 45 hours of classes per semester, grouped into a weekly meeting of 3 classes over 15 weeks in the Architecture and Urban Planning course. We understand acoustics as hearing, from audire in Latin, akous in Greek. Thus, we talk about sound, sources, propagation, receptors, addressing acoustic design: conventional and Schaferian. On the first day, we, professor and students, introduce ourselves and exchange a little about our daily experiences with hearing within the "acoustic sphere" that we are, and the topics of the course emerge. We work mainly in the classroom: the first hour of class is a lecture on the theme of the week; the second, applied exercises (numbers phase: mathematics of acoustics) and the third, guided studies (letters phase: interpretations of text read during the week prior to the class). Outside the classroom, there is also an individual phenomenological activity in which each student reports in writing their auditory experience. One day, there is a collective listening session in an open-air square, a kind of Schaferian ear-cleansing towards clairaudience. Finally, there are three recommended films to watch on the thematic issues. This is a structure we found to ensure student engagement.