Freshmen explore faith and science through fossil digs with geologist
Janel Shoun-Smith |
Secrets of the Universe class explores science from a new angle
What do physics, fossils and faith have in common. More than you would expect, especially in Alan Bradshaw’s freshman Honors College Lipscomb Seminar called “Secrets of the Universe.”
Bradshaw, chair of the physics program, has held his mysterious-sounding Lipscomb Seminar as an honors college option for the past two years. But this year, he partnered with an alumnus of Lipscomb’s Honors College program to provide on-site study of ancient fossils with one of Tennessee’s prominent geologists.
Daniel Gordon (’04, M.Div. ’09), a long-time minister from Hendersonville and a D.Min. candidate at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, partnered with Bradshaw last fall to take 20 of his students in the class to three Tennessee fossil digs and a University of Tennessee-Martin geology laboratory supervised by Michael Gibson, professor of geology at UT-Martin.
Bradshaw’s Lipscomb Seminar is a freshman-level course designed to introduce new students to “the academy.” For some years, professors have developed their own themes and assignments to engage students in projects requiring them to think, read and write critically. Fall seminars were based on various themes such as comic books, the Serial podcast, baseball literature, controversies in science, effecting social change, food, political science fiction and “Star Wars.”
Bradshaw’s class uses scientific concepts to show the value of thinking about common things in a different way. Assignments and discussion challenge students to recognize their preconceptions of reality and look at those beliefs again through the lens of modern science, nature, experiential learning and faith.
For example, the students read the novella “Flatland,” a parable about a three-dimensional sphere that travels to the two-dimensional Flatland to try to get the flat squares and circles to think beyond their two dimensions.
“We asked questions like, ‘What if God were extra-dimensional?” That would make a lot of miracles He performed possible,” said Naomi Derksen, an honors student and class participant.
“We took current theories in science and looked at what could be,” said Bradshaw. “String theory opens up a lot of possibilities.”
Enter Gordon, an adjunct Bible instructor at Lipscomb. He heard about Bradshaw’s class through Honors College Director Paul Prill, and thought the class would make a great pool of subjects for his doctoral research study exploring how an in-the-field, firsthand experience with science might impact young people’s existing views on faith and science.
For Gordon, this is a very personal subject. His wife, Rachel, is a Christian and a science teacher who has often been frustrated by fellow Christians’ negative views of scientific concepts. Through his wife, Gordon has an “insider’s view” of the relationship between science and faith. He wondered if providing a similar insider’s view to students might influence their perceptions of that relationship.
So Gordon and Bradshaw teamed up to schedule four geological experiences for the students in Horse Creek and Coon Creek in West Tennessee, a rock quarry in Nashville and at the UT Martin lab. Two were overnight trips that included group devotionals. Each class participant who opted to be part of the research project attended at least two of the four opportunities, completed out surveys, were interviewed by Gordon and completed journal entries about the experience.
Gibson, who is currently working on a book about fossils in Tennessee, instructed the students on how to find fossils and about what they were finding in the rocks. He also came to the Lipscomb campus during the fall semester to give his own take on science and faith to Honors College students and the public.
For the purposes of both the Lipscomb Seminar class and Gordon’s research study, the building of relationships among the students as they participated was of key importance, said the professors. The class was divided fairly evenly between science majors and other majors, and the discussions were lively on both the paleontological digs and in the classroom, said participants.
“Students came in excited and receptive to explore positive attitudes toward science and deep faith convictions,” said Gordon. “The personal encounter they had with other people, fossils and the physical activity was rewarding and influential. Almost all said they enjoyed the experience and felt enhanced in their faith life.”
Studying fossils, in particular, was a good way to help students “encounter an aspect of the place where they live that they hadn’t seen before,” Gordon said. For example, after the digs, several students told him they are now more aware of the limestone layers they see as they drive on the highways.
“No one told them what to think,” Bradshaw said of the fossil study. “We encouraged them to consider differing assertions, apply their own observations and come up with their own conclusion, but never challenging the basic girders of their faith.
“The biggest critics of any idea are the most polar and the most vocal, so they end up defining the debate. We introduced some of the more reasoned voices,” he said.
Students say the class opened up many more questions than it ever answered, but it also made them more comfortable with those uncertainties. Hannah Holbert, a freshman biology major, said the class helped her be more comfortable with hypothetical ideas. And all the students said it was fun to get dirty – even muddy -- for a while.
“The fossils were extremely easy to find, and so fragile,” said Derksen.
“I went into (the archaeological digs) with an open mind, and it both reinforced things I believe and brought up new ideas,” said Holbert.
“There was a lot of discussion, so everyone got to speak their mind,” said Hope Reed, a freshman major in electrical engineering. “I loved the openness. Everyone was really accepting of one another.”