Modeling plasma particle motion with MATLAB in the physics classroom [STEM Education]

Plasma physics is an advanced physical science composed of complex mathematics. The biggest challenge new learners face is the difficulty of visualizing these complicated concepts. The goal of this application is to aid that visualization process. In this work we present a MATLAB based graphical user interface developed for classroom purposes. Using this application, the educator can aid the learning process of the undergraduate students who are learning plasma physics for the first time. Undergraduate students can use this application as a virtual experimentation tool, learn from it, and improve upon it by adding more features to it. After multiple iterations we would like to develop a full plasma simulator that can be used in graduate research.