Today class began with a discussion of stellar evolution. Dave went on to teach the students to run a STELLA model that allows them to show how a strain of the flu spreads. With this model the students can change the setting to allow them to determine the number of people that can get sick, the number of people who are sick to start with, and the rates at which the people get sick and get better. Dave used this STELLA model to demonstrate how STELLA works. This allowed the students to begin to use STELLA to make other types of models related to astronomy and astrophysics. Their goal was to use STELLA to create a to model of stellar interiors, the way they react, and at what rate they react. Students then found out that they can use STELLA to make a graph of the results once the model has been run.
After break the students worked on learning astrochemistry. They discovered that the galaxy is made of mostly hydrogen. Then Dave went on to talk about star dust. Star dust is dust that appears in the galaxy. The students then had a chance to model the relationship and the coexistance of molecular hydrogen and star dust.
After the afternoon break the students began learning more than basic knowledge about planets. Dave and the students used Excel to look at how properties of planets, such as the number of moons they have, change with distance from the sun.