EASTHAMPTON – Growing up surrounded by corn and beans in rural Iowa, Leah Nichole Ewing would wake up early to the chirps and songs of birds.

Her window overlooked the outer edge of the woods where she spent her childhood exploring and enjoying the wonders of the natural world. Some days, she and her friend would walk around the woods with a small tape recorder, capturing sounds and talking over them like they were radio announcers.

Now, living in Easthampton, Ewing is recording an album titled “Birdsong,” one of two interdisciplinary science and music projects aiming to promote kindness toward nature.

The other project, “Musical Microlife,” is a series featuring videos of microorganisms set to original piano music.

“If you’re someone who’s really into studying biology, biodiversity and the environment, you love it, and you can feel like, ‘Why isn’t anyone else caring or noticing this thing that’s huge to me?’” said Ewing, scrunching her nose and eyebrows. “I started using art and multimedia to help me cope with those feelings and try to turn them into something more meaningful that I could share with others.”

Last year, Ewing, a longtime public school educator and current professor at Holyoke Community College, received a $5,000 grant from the Massachusetts Arts Council to make that dream a reality and kickstart her two educational projects.

“I think combining art and the sciences is a way to make all of the science more accessible,” said Ewing. “When you draw or do music, you channel something in a different kind of media. Your brain makes more connections which kind of solidifies in your core.”

“Birdsong” by The Quiet-Loud Machine is an eight-track folk album featuring Ewing on guitar, vocals and piano, alongside the beats and vocal harmonies of “Tea So Cold,” a beats artist out of New York City.

Each song weaves melodies around the sounds of birds from Ewing’s rural hometown, including black-capped chickadees, starlings and crows, among others.

“You can passively read a million articles but still never really interact with a black-capped chickadee,” said Ewing. “For ‘Birdsong,’ the idea came from some of the first steps to actually going out and actively learning about birds. You have to know their calls.”

Music has always been a part of Ewing’s life. She grew up taking classical piano lessons, singing in choir, listening to her father sing the same seven songs again and again during morning car rides, and playing piano duets with her grandmother.

But while at home, her parents never listened to music. Most of the time, Ewing was filling the silence with her own made up melodies.

“I just think in song,” said Ewing. “I always thought it was kind of weird and I think I was embarrassed to share that as a kid, but I would wake up in the night and I would think of little melodies and just sing them, maybe to comfort myself.”

“When I’m looking at nature, I’m just inspired to write music,” she added. “I hear a song. I hear a soundtrack to it.”

That’s why creating an album about nature came so naturally. It was a way to reminisce on her childhood, make use of music as an outlet, and create something that would have an influence on her students and beyond.

A large part of the project, said Ewing, “is to reintroduce some of the joy of learning, the joy of celebrating biodiversity back into the classroom.”

Currently, two songs, “Black-capped Chickadee” and “Hardscrabble,” are available on Bandcamp, and the whole album will be released in October.

As for the other project, “Musical Microlife,” which can be found on her YouTube, Ewing said it “stemmed from a disconnect [she] noticed in the classroom.”

When she taught middle school science, she spent time teaching students how to use a microscope to observe tiny organisms the size of a hair strand’s width. But because the scale of the organisms was so small, many students had a hard time understanding why creatures like paramecium and bacteria mattered.

“Making the invisible visible is my goal,” said Ewing. “These microorganisms are playing pretty key roles in the overall web of life. How can we make a connection from humankind to this thing we can barely see?”

In an effort to answer that question, the video series personifies microorganisms such as rotifers, stentors and elodeas.

In one video, “Roti the Rotifer” is described as “a flatworm with horns” and “the demogorgon in Stranger Things.” Roti narrates the video, telling viewers how it sweeps food into its mouth using cilia, explaining its size compared to humans, and describing other microscopic activity in its environment.

“With Roti the Rotifer kind of spelling out how small it was, that blew my students minds,” said Ewing. “It’s helping the students to make multiple connections.”

“Until I started rolling out these stories, people were just memorizing the number for a test,” she said. “It seemed like we weren’t really pausing to reflect on how much was going on in this space and what we could learn from that.”

Ewing said that she will continue to work art and music into her biology curriculum at Holyoke Community College, and will present her work at the Easthampton public library in September and Farmer’s Market on Saturday.

“There are some things we can’t control about our environment, Mother Nature, but there’s also a lot we can do,” said Ewing. “It’s important not to lose sight of that when you’re someone who care about the natural world and is sensitive to it.”

Maddie Fabian can be reached at mfabian@gazettenet.com or on Twitter @MaddieFabian.]]>