Window To The Stars: Using A Graphical User Interface To The Twin Stellar Evolution Code For Student
TalkTeaching Methods and Tools
5th Shaw-IAU Workshop
Wednesday Nov. 29, 2023
UTC: 9:15 a.m. - 9:25 a.m. America/New_York: 4:15 a.m.- 4:25 a.m.
Thursday Nov. 30, 2023
UTC: 8:45 p.m. - 8:55 p.m. America/New_York: 3:45 p.m.- 3:55 p.m.
Andy Brittain BSc(Hons), PGCE, MRi, MInstP (Lady Eleanor Holles School)
. Window To The Stars (WTTS) provides a graphical user interface (GUI) to the TWIN stellar evolution code originally written for professional astrophysicists by Peter Eggleton. As Robert Izzard and Evert Gleebeck stated in their 2006 paper: “[WTTS] removes the drudgery associated with the traditional approach to running the code, while maintaining the power, output quality and flexibility a modern stellar evolutionist requires.” In fact the GUI is user friendly enough for school children to use it: so that is what is being done. Over the past few years I have been working with Robert Izzard, the GUI’s author, to establish a programme for school children that can extend and enrich their learning. This presentation discusses the application of WTTS to student led stellar modelling projects.
About Andy Brittain BSc(Hons), PGCE, MRi, MInstP
Andy Brittain is a Physics Teacher and STEM Co-ordinator at Lady Eleanor Holles School in London, England. He has been teaching in UK secondary schools, mostly as Head of Physics, for a quarter of a century. He is a Schools Observatory Champion who specialises in school based research projects and STEM outreach.
