Lisa Werner, a music teacher at St. Bruno School in Dousman, poses next to Popoki, the guided vehicle used by scientists to gather information on marine life. (Submitted photo)
Lisa Werner knows that most of her students at St. Bruno School in Dousman aren’t going to go on to become professional musicians.
But that doesn’t mean what they learn in her music class won’t impact their life.
“Music has been a part of every time period in human history and is a part of every culture on the planet. Music connects people together,” Werner said. “As a teacher, I absolutely love to find connections with other content areas and disciplines to music, and teach students about that.”
Werner’s passion as an educator is finding, exploring and celebrating the intersections between musical concepts, other academic subjects and real-world applications — and that passion has led her on some pretty amazing adventures.
In May 2022, Werner was selected by NASA to test in a zero-gravity flight experiments she and her students created. More recently, she began the 2024-25 school year onboard the NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada, working with scientists as they used a remotely operated vehicle to explore features of the seafloor off the Oregon coast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is tasked with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas and conducting deep-sea exploration, among others.
“These incredible experiences I get to have are just great examples for the students that music can take you anywhere,” said Werner, who has been teaching for almost 25 years.
“She can make a connection to sound and music in the most creative of ways,” said St. Bruno Principal Mary MacDonald. “One might think, why in the world is a music teacher interested in space? Or, why in the world is a music teacher going (to sea)? That’s because she’s got a great interest in the world, then she brings all those things back to her passionate connection to music and educating.”
Werner’s 16-day stint aboard the Bell M. Shimada was facilitated through NOAA’s Teacher at Sea program, which seeks to give teachers firsthand experience studying science at sea. Werner applied for the Teacher at Sea program last November, and was one of eight teachers selected to participate in it.
“I knew very little about oceans — I did know that sound waves are used in sonar to locate other ships, but that was about it,” said Werner. “I wanted to learn more so that I could encourage students who are passionate and curious about marine life. I knew that if I got selected for this experience, the students would really benefit from learning how important sound wave (music) knowledge is in other areas of study.”
A typical day for Werner aboard the Bell M. Shimada began at 6:30 a.m. with breakfast in the mess hall, followed by a meeting with the science team and crew to go over the risk assessment for the day’s mission. “We never had to cancel a mission, but we did have to delay a few times due to wind conditions,” she said. From there, the group would head down to the lab and deck areas to get the autonomous underwater vehicle ready for deployment.
The vehicle guided by the team, Popoki, graphed the salinity, dissolved oxygen and temperature of the ocean utilizing a sophisticated system of sensors. Popoki communicated with the scientists using a form of technology Werner was more than a little acquainted with: sound.
“The technology is similar to that of a fax machine — a computer translates the programming from the scientist into a series of audio tones that are sent to Popoki,” wrote Werner on the blog she maintained throughout the experience.
Popoki would usually return from its seven-hour mission shortly before dinner, and the evenings involved deploying more sensors, and gathering and sorting more samplings of organisms into vials to preserve for study in a lab after the ship’s return to port.
“I was blown away by the different plankton I got to learn about and hold in my hand,” said Werner.
Werner plans to incorporate her experience in the classroom in a number of different ways.
“Our theme for our spring concert in May will be a water/ocean theme,” she said. “This also fits beautifully into our school’s theme of Growing in Faith, as you need water for life to grow, and water is a very important component in our faith.”
Werner’s classes have also been playing games using the principles of sonar to develop musical skills of crescendoes and decrescendos (getting louder and softer). “I have also taken the principles of how the audio modem communicates with the AUV underwater and created a music lesson in which students will get in partners with one student pretending to be the AUV and one student serving as the AUV pilot,” she said. “The partners will create their own audio code just like the audio modem uses, and then they will use their code to communicate a musical composition to the other person to perform.”
Werner praised NOAA for selecting a music teacher for this STEM-focused program.
“I like students to understand that music is connected to everything. Sometimes they think they can’t do certain things — like I know when I was a kid, I had a rough math class, and so I thought I couldn’t ever do math very well,” she said. “I want to show kids that they do math all the time, just in sneaky ways, or that they do understand science concepts (more than they realize). Using music to understand it gives them a little bit more confidence to jump into some other subject matters or try different things that they might not necessarily be thinking they could do. My classroom is an experiment for them to find out what it is they love, and we just use music as that guide to introduce them to new things.”
Lisa Werner (left), a music teacher at St. Bruno School in Dousman, teaches the chief scientist aboard her ship how to play the ukele. (Submitted photo)
