Have you ever seen a public service announcement when watching TV, or heard one on the radio? Public service announcements (or PSAs) are advertisements used by the government and nonprofit organizations to raise awareness of an issue, or encourage people to take action to make an improvement in their community. An effective PSA is one that appeals to a target audience, informs the listener, and provides a call to action.

For this assignment, you will be creating a PSA for teenagers that explains risks to their hearing and steps they can take to prevent long-term hearing loss. Your PSA should last between 1-2 minutes and should be sure to address the following:

• What are the hair cells in the inner ear? How can they be damaged?
• What are some common decibel levels for noises, and what are examples?
• What levels of decibels can cause permanent damage?
• What are some dangers of listening to music with headphones on?
• What are some good steps for limiting the potential damage to hearing when using personal listening devices?

For this assignment, you should use audio recording software provided to you by your school or free audio recording software available online, such as Audacity. Before you begin, review the PSA Checklist so that you will understand how your assignment will be graded. You will need to use resources outside of this course to complete this assignment. Please submit a Work Cited document. If you need assistance, visit the Developmental Module for information on citing any resources you use.

 

Once you have completed your PSA, please submit your work to the dropbox.