Send your questions to the professor, and they'll get put here if others might be interested. Or if there's something you figured out and think others would like to know, send a note to the professor and he'll add it here.
The Graphics Town Code Page, as well as the comments in the code have many hints as to how to work with it.
Graphics town does not do full depth sorting. Instead, each object gets to draw itself twice. First the "draw" function is called for each object, then the "drawAfter" is called on each object. The idea is that any opaque parts go into draw, and the transparent parts go into drawAfter. This doesn't handle problems where multiple transparent objects get drawn in the wrong order, but it does make it so that opaque objects can be seen through transparent ones.
Its an ugly hack, but it was much easier to do than depth sorting. If you want to do lots of transparency, you probably need to use depth sorting, which would require making changes to the core of the code.
Many students in the past have either written (or appropriated) code that reads in 3D models. This is OK, but be sure to give proper attribution for any code that you use, and make sure that the code you use is legal for including in your own program (e.g. its open source).
If you have a model loader, you can use a modeling program to make nice models. You can also find some models on the web. Remember, however, you need to make some of the objects yourself. Also, if you use models from the web, be sure to give proper attribution and make sure that they are legal for including in your own program (e.g. its open source).
Because you probably have an old version of OpenGL in visual studio. You need an extension manager to get access to the newer stuff. Read about it here.