Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture NEH Summer Institute for Teachers July 12-30, 2010

poster abstractThis institute will support the studies of twenty-five talented teachers from across the nation as they join with nationally renowned scholars to explore how religion has shaped, and been shaped by, the American experience. The institute directors, Philip Goff, Arthur Farnsley, and Rachel Wheeler, are all noted scholars in their field, whose work encompasses a wide range of subject matter and methodologies. The institute will enable participants from many different fields to develop new materials on American religion that can be incorporated into their current curricula. An English teacher introducing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for instance, will be better prepared to discuss the nexus of religion and race in the context of nineteenth-century America. A civics teacher focusing on the origins of the American government will be able to incorporate discussion about the religion of the founders and the ways in which the First Amendment has shaped American society

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture

poster abstractThe NEH Summer Institute for Teachers will support the studies of twenty-five talented teachers from across the nation as they join with nationally renowned scholars to explore how religion has shaped, and been shaped by, the American experience. The institute directors, Philip Goff, Arthur Farnsley, and Rachel Wheeler, are all noted scholars in their field, whose work encompasses a wide range of subject matter and methodologies. The institute will enable participants from many different fields to develop new materials on American religion that can be incorporated into their current curricula. An English teacher introducing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for instance, will be better prepared to discuss the nexus of religion and race in the context of nineteenth-century America. A civics teacher focusing on the origins of the American government will be able to incorporate discussion about the religion of the founders and the ways in which the First Amendment has shaped American society. The prime goal of The Bible in American Life project is to gain insight for clergy and scholars on Bible-reading as a religious practice. We are particularly interested in how people use the Bible in their personal lives, how religious communities and even the internet shape individuals’ comprehension of scripture, and how individual and communal understandings of scripture influence American public life. Employing both quantitative methods (the General Social Survey and a local survey) and qualitative research (focus-group interviews, historical analysis, and other means), we hope to provide an unprecedented perspective on the Bible’s role outside the context of worship, in the lived religion of a broad cross-section of Americans both now and in the past. Such data will be invaluable to clergy and seminar professors seeking more effective ways to teach and preach scripture in an age saturated with information and technology. The results of the project also will help scholars seeking to understand recent changes in American Christianity

The Five Love Languages and Relationship Satisfaction

The current study will examine the relationship between Dr. Gary Chapman's Five Love Languages and relationship satisfaction. Possible implications include couple's therapy and other alternative ways to solving relationship issues. Participants in this study will complete a Qualtrics survey consisting of 12 questions. My hypothesis is that the failure to provide your partner with their most desired Love Language will result in decreased overall relationship satisfaction. My second hypothesis is fulfillment of the least desired Love Language will contribute less overall relationship satisfaction. Fulfillment of needs in a relationship can contribute to the overall relationship success

Overcoming evolutionary history: conditioning the endangered Barrens topminnow to avoid predation by the invasive Western mosquitofish

Organisms use cues to assess their environment; however, environmental changes can create a mismatch between cues and the conditions with which they were historically associated. An evolutionary trap is when past selection pressures shaped cue-response systems that were once adaptive for an organism but no longer are. Invasive species are one cause of evolutionary traps, and the Barrens Topminnow (BTM), Fundulus julisia serves as an example of an imperiled species trapped by the introduction of an invasive predator: the Western Mosquitofish (WMF), Gambusia affinis. This study used conditioning to help the BTM escape its evolutionary trap, and data showed that conditioned fish responded significantly different to the presentation of WMF compared to control fish, and sampling following release of BTMs resulted recapturing exclusively conditioned individuals. These results suggest that conditioning may encourage BTM recognition of WMF as a predator and increase long-term survival of the BTM

Learning to Overcome a Lack of Evolutionary History: Can an Endangered Fish Learn to Fear an Introduced Predator?

Rapid environmental change has led to unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss. One source of rapid environmental change involves the introduction of non-native species. In many cases, lack of evolutionary history with introduced species means that native species lack adaptive responses to avoid predation by introduced species. Understanding how native species can persist with introduced species has been a major focus of biological research. In some cases, learning can allow native individuals to acclimate when faced with introduced species. However, we lack a comprehensive understanding of whether learning can allow individuals to overcome a lack of evolutionarily engrained behavior in relation to non-native species. Here, we illustrate that in some cases individuals can potentially learn to overcome a lack of evolutionarily engrained anti-predator behavior when faced with a novel predator and be conditioned to avoid predation. Specifically, by pairing an aversive stimulus with the presence of an introduced, novel fish predator and measuring behavioral and survival effects, we demonstrate that an endangered fish species, the Barrens Topminnow (BTM), Fundulus julisia, can learn to exhibit anti-predator behavior toward an introduced predator. This anti-predator behavior potentially increases survival in the wild. In addition, our findings suggest that BTM adjust their behavior in response to chondroitin sulfate, suggesting that this chemical might function as an alarm cue in this species