Augmented Reality in Organic Chemistry Education: an Immersive and Interactive Approach to Teaching Structural and Spatial Isomerism

Abstract

Chemistry Teaching has the challenge of teaching abstract topics in a contextualized and interesting way that are often distant from the student’s daily life. To solve this problem, teachers can use richer resources than verbal explanations, in order to bring students closer to the phenomena. In the scenario of technological innovations, Augmented Reality emerges as a promising alternative for the visual representation of objects related to content and can contribute to teaching the area of chemistry known as organic chemistry. For understanding, it is essential that students are able to visualize three-dimensional objects. As the use of textbooks and blackboards cannot always overcome this obstacle, the present work aimed to create 39 augmented reality markers and apply these materials to teaching organic chemistry content such as structural and spatial isomerism. Through the teaching material developed, using augmented reality markers, it is possible to visualize molecular structures in three dimensions. The application of the markers in the classroom confirmed the contributions of this tool in teaching isomerism to high school students and highlighted some limitations of the teaching resources that were improved for future pedagogical interventions.