Soul Food: Understanding and Implementing an Effective Creative Arts Ministry at the Collegiate Level

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the varying roles of the creative arts in society and the church. It provides a review of literature examining how the arts are being implemented in entertainment, therapy, education, and ministry today, along with a handbook on how to run Soul Food, a college creative arts ministry club. Through a discussion on the intrinsic value of the arts and their ability to provide people with new and deeper ways to encounter God, this thesis provides a basis for the significance of integrating the arts, and empowering artists in the church. The Soul Food Handbook exists as a model on how to effectively build and run a functioning creative arts ministry

When Beauty is More Than Skin Deep: A Content Analysis of Popular Beauty YouTubers’ Video Strategies

The beauty community on YouTube is a popular outlet for influencer generated video content. Beauty YouTubers provide their viewers with makeup-related videos from tutorials to the latest trends on the platform. As a result, the influencers have gained high subscriber counts that generate revenue through advertisements and brand partnerships. The influencers create relationships with their subscribers that lead to loyalty in the form of video views and merchandise purchasing. This study provides a content analysis of common characteristics within 10 popular beauty YouTubers’ videos examining the strategies used by the influencers. The top five videos from each beauty YouTuber were selected resulting in a total of 50 videos analyzed. Parasocial Interaction and Framing theories were the theoretical frameworks for this study. The results of this study indicated a series of commonly used characteristics within the most popular videos posted by the top beauty influencers on YouTube

Takataka Talk: Waste Presence and Management in Ushongo

Increasingly high levels of waste are being generated each year, resulting in millions of tonnes of plastic and other debris ending up in marine and coastal environments. The impacts of the debris on these environments are wide ranging, affecting both environmental health and human wellbeing. Still though, there is a lack of information concerning the presence and effect of garbage in many coastal and marine ecosystems around the globe. This project studied the presence and management of coastal waste along a small portion of the coast of Tanzania, near the village of Ushongo. General distribution, level, and type of garbage along the beach were studied, as well as the impact of different types of human activity along the shore (resort, village, and uninhabited beach) and the level of seaweed. Interviews were also conducted to understand the thoughts, opinions, and concerns of different people residing and working in the Ushongo area. Overall, the study found that human activity type has little influence on garbage and seaweed levels, while seaweed levels have high influence on garbage. Additionally, plastics were found to have elevated levels, and awareness and concern of beach litter was high among members of the village

Middle School Mathematics Teachers\u27 Perception of Socioeconomic Status and Effects on Instruction

In a small but diverse suburban school district, the gap in mathematics performance between economically disadvantaged and economically nondisadvantaged students was slowly widening as evidenced by state test scores. The purpose and key research questions of this instrumental case study were designed to (a) identify what Grades 6, 7 and 8 mathematics teachers perceive the role socioeconomic status plays in ability to learn mathematics and to (b) understand what teachers believe affects their perceptions of students\u27 ability to learn mathematics. The conceptual framework guiding this study was social reproduction theory. The nine participants were middle school (i.e., Grades 6, 7 and 8) mathematics teachers from a small, diverse, suburban school district. Data were gathered through semistructured interviews; publicly available aggregated demographic data; and a reflective journal used to assist in identifying themes, patterns, and any questions that were encountered during data analysis. The identified themes of academic performance, communication, expected student characteristics, personal experiences and influences on perceptions, preparation to teach low SES students, and student support were used to better understand how teacher perceptions affect mathematics instruction and student success. A position paper outlining a course of action intended to increase teachers\u27 understanding of the needs of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and how to meet those needs, was created for presentation to the district leadership. The project study findings positively affect social change by identifying areas where professional development and focused instruction in teacher preparation programs on the unique needs of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds are needed in the local district

Some current ideas about the evolution of the human life history

Journal ArticleHuman life history is characterised by a long juvenile period (weaning to reproductive maturity), and a long post-reproductive lifespan in females. How do we explain the differences between our nearest relatives, the great apes, and ourselves? This chapter summarises some recent attempts to use life history models on data from contemporary hunter-gatherers, and other noncontracepting populations with little access to modern medicine

Hadza scavenging: implications for Plio/Pleistocene Hominid subsistence

Journal ArticleThe frequent association of stone tools and large animal bones in African Plio/Pleistocene archaeological sites has long been taken as evidence of the importance of hunting in early hominid diets. Many now argue that it reflects hominid scavenging, not hunting

Global process and local ecology: how should we explain differences between the Hadza and the !Kung?

Journal ArticleIn this chapter we discuss explanations for the diversity of behavior of contemporary forager populations. Other contributors document variation among southern African savanna Bushman groups, and central African forest Pygmies. We confine ourselves to trying to explain some differences between two savanna groups who have been studied quantitatively, the Hadza and the !Kung. We further confine ourselves to discussing two kinds of explanation that are currently considered to be opposed to one another, behavioral ecology (Smith and Winterhalder 1992), and political economy/historical revisionism as presented to hunter-gatherer researchers by Wilmsen (1989)

Hunting and nuclear families: some lessons from the Hadza about men's work

Journal ArticleHadza hunter-gatherers display economic and social features usually assumed to indicate the dependence of wives and children on provisioning husbands and fathers. The wives and children of better Hadza hunters have been found to be better-nourished, consistent with the assumption that men hunt to provision their families. Yet, as is common among foragers, the Hadza share meat widely. Analyses of meat-sharing data confirm that little of the meat from large prey went to the hunter's own household. These analyses also show that neither a man's hunting success nor the time he spent hunting made any difference in how much meat his family got from the kills of others. Here we address questions posed by this set of observations. What explains the better nutrition of the children of better hunters if they did not get differential rations of meat? If better hunters got no more meat for their effort and poorer hunters were not punished with less, what incentive could account for the continuing disproportionate contribution that some men made to the group's nutrition? If women were not dependent on their husband's hunting success for meat, an obvious incentive for women to marry hunters disappears. We briefly consider the implications of these patterns for the evolution of marriage and nuclear families