Micromagnetic simulations for incorporating computational methods into the physics curriculum

Computational methods have become an indispensable tool in modern physics research. As a consequence, college-level physics curricula contain a growing volume of specialized computational courses. A complementary approach is given by embedding computational topics into courses that are traditionally centered around either theoretical or experimental contents. Here, we present a successful implementation of the latter strategy in an elective course on magnetic materials and applications, where the Ubermag micromagnetic simulation software package is used by students to solve numerical problems that are linked to current research activities in the field of magnetism. We argue that, by letting students work on well-defined group projects and thereby following the technology-enabled active-learning approach, instructors can facilitate a more in-depth exploration of the course contents. In detail, we demonstrate that the combination of micromagnetics as a topical subject and Jupyter notebooks as an interactive computational tool to run Python code provides a useful approach to incorporating computational contents into an established course. Moreover, we also touch on topics such as software installation challenges and interactivity. Finally, we put our case study into the context of discussions about the need for more computational-focused physics curricula in higher education.