The formation of stars from gas in disk galaxies is one of the most basic processes controlling galactic evolution. While there are many other important effects, such as galaxy interactions and infall of diffuse gas, ultimately a large fraction of the gas settles into a rotationally supported disk where the majority of the stellar population is born. Due to restrictions in resolution, galactic-scale simulations have largely modeled star formation using empirical correlations between the gas density and star formation rate. While useful, these methods are unable to tell us about the early stages of star formation and the evolution of the interstellar medium (ISM). In this talk, we show results from a set of high adaptive mesh resolution (
University of Florida