Computation and Visualization for Astronomy and Physics

马萨诸塞大学阿姆赫斯特分校物理与天文系与五学院天文系目前正在开展一项倡议，以使本科课程现代化，并确保学生获得进入工业和学术领域各种职业的基础培训。这一举措的关键是将计算物理和天文学的元素和技能融入到本科课程的各个层次，包括广泛订阅的物理和天文学服务课程和专业必修课程。学生将在整个本科阶段接触到科学计算和可视化的角色和技术，从入门级的交互式实验室演示和家庭作业到高级课程的数据接口和数值模拟。为了充分实现这些目标，我们正在创建一个物理和天文学学生计算和可视化实验室。该设备使计算实验室项目成为课程的一个组成部分，为学生提供了在现代科技项目中日常使用的计算问题解决和数据分析类型的坚实介绍，并使学生能够亲身体验高性能、并行计算和图形可视化。学生通过多种方法（口头数学，图形，观察）学习物理，并能够通过多种环境（文本，方程，静态和动画图形，模拟条件，实验和观察）进行积极探索。该项目的一个关键产品是为全国教育界生成和输出实验和课程项目模块。

The Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, together with the Five College Astronomy Department, are currently engaging in an initiative to modernize the undergraduate curriculum and ensure that students obtain training fundamental to entering a wide variety of careers in the industrial and academic sectors. The keystone of this initiative is the integration of computational physics and astronomy elements and skills into all levels of the undergraduate program, both for the widely subscribed service courses in physics and astronomy and the required courses for majors. Students will be exposed to the roles and techniques of scientific computation and visualization throughout their undergraduate experience from interactive laboratory demonstrations and homework assignments on the introductory levels to data interfaces and numerical simulations in the advanced courses. To enable full realization of these objectives we are creating a physics and astronomy student computation and visualization laboratory. The equipment allows computational laboratory projects to become an integral feature of the courses, offers students a solid introduction to the types of computational problem solving and data analysis used daily in modern scientific and technological projects, and enables hands on experience in high performance and parallel computing and graphical visualization. Students learn physics through multiple methods (verbal mathematical, graphical, observational) and are able to engage in active exploration through multiple environments (text, equations, static and animated graphics, and simulations of conditions, experiments, and observations). A key product of this program is the generation and export of laboratory and lesson project modules for the national educational community.