Using a Virtual Reality Environment to Enhance Teaching and Learning About 3D Chemical Structure (StereoAI)

A third year undergraduate student was hired to work on this project (co-funded by the HCI Virtual Labs project) for 6 months (March-August 2025). In this time, the student investigated gamification, and story-boarded a multi-player game that includes an engaging storyline coupled with stereochemistry-themed questions that align with module learning outcomes.

A virtual environment for teaching stereochemistry previously developed by another undergraduate student was enhanced, and used for trial teaching sessions with both transition year students and second year undergraduates. Groups of 4-5 students in the area at a time. The four walls of the space are used to display lecture slides and a video tutorial for a key learning outcome (how to assign configuration using the Cahn-Ingold-Prelog rules). Three different sets of compounds to investigate are included in the workspace. At each station, a pair of enantiomers (or diastereoisomers) are locked in the space, and a box with multiple copies of each is provided close by. Students can select molecules, rotate and/or resize them, and map them to the ones locked in the space to identify if they have the same molecule or it’s enantiomer. This enables them to visualise the compounds better in the 3D space, and allows them to physically hold a molecule in their hands while following the video tutorial.

Spatial Stereochemistry teaching environment link: https://www.spatial.io/s/CHM1010-Chemistry-Stereoisomers-Chemistry-is-n…

This interactive space was trialled with both undergraduate and second level students in November/December 2025:

1. DCU Access Step Up in STEM workshop on November 5th and 7th, ca. 35 transition year students over the two sessions.

2. CHM1010 Organic Chemistry (second year undergraduate students), two sessions on Tuesday 25th November (at 9.15-10.30 and 10.45-12.00), 3-4 students per session.

3. School of Chemical Sciences Chemistry placement week for Transition Year students, December 1st to 5th 2025, ca. 16 transition year students (two groups of 8)
 

The interactive teaching space was trialled with both undergraduate and second level students in November/December 2025. This very early stage beta test was used to identify the opportunities and challenges of using the space with a small number of users (ca. 50 transition year students and 8 second year undergraduate students).

The first trials, with transition year students with no knowledge of stereochemistry, helped us to develop how we introduce students to the space and to the core theoretical concepts. A practical learning from this trial was that the space would benefit from more fixed assets, with limited assets available for students to change/move/remove. The environment was modified before the next trial, and a more structured protocol for guiding students’ learning was developed.

One impact of this project was providing more than fifty second level students with an introduction to a key concept in chemistry - stereochemistry - in an interactive and engaging manner. These students will be selecting their leaving certificate subjects later in the academic year, and this experience may encourage some to consider taking up chemistry for senior cycle.

A second impact was the potential for undergraduate students to consolidate their learning, by applying in practice something they had mainly experienced as a paper-based exercise in visualisation. During one session, it was very gratifying to see a student line up two molecules and demonstrate that they have simulated a mirror plane (a key aspect of 3D visualisation in stereochemistry).
 

The virtual reality teaching space in Spatial will be used as part of an undergraduate organic chemistry module. In their lectures, students learn about the many different ways that molecules can be visualised in 3D. Often, these are drawings that are based on different viewpoints with respect to the molecule. In the virtual reality environment, students will have the ability to move around the molecules, view them from different directions, and relate this to the theoretical visualisations that they have learned about. This will be a beneficial additional resource for students.

With the addition of the new Spark space in DCU, we will have access to a second virtual lab suite, enabling us to simultaneously host up to 40 students in the space at a time. The limit of our hosting ability is 50 people (based on current Spatial licence). However, given the highly interactive nature of the teaching space, it is expected that the sessions will be limited initially to 15 students, and expanded to 30 students simultaneously with optimisation and expansion of the space and guided activities.

Future work will also look at sharing this virtual space with other lecturers, and evaluating their experiences in using this with their students.
This project is being continued by an undergraduate project student (Spring 2026), who is exploring gamification of stereochemistry (extending the work from this project). Using Unity, the student is preparing a virtual reality game, in which students interact with molecules and answer questions about stereochemistry concepts.

The project has not been evaluated.

Following these trial uses of the space, the environment will be enhanced before the next iteration with students (semester 1, 2026-2027). There will be two key aspects for evaluation: 1) impact on students’ understanding, and 2) usefulness to teachers.

For evaluation of students’ understanding, we will add an appropriate evaluation strategy to the HCI Virtual Labs research ethics approval. This will include pre- and post-intervention surveys, and may include focus groups (to be held in the summer after implementation, when all assessment for the module is completed). 
It is also proposed that other academics who teach stereochemistry will be recruited to trial the space, and their feedback will be collected. Wider adoption of the teaching space would have the potential to provide an enhanced learning opportunity for large numbers of students across Ireland and beyond.