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{{Paper
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|title=Augmented reality while studying radiochemistry for the upcoming chemistry teachers
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2898/paper08.pdf
|volume=Vol-2898
|authors=Liliia Ya. Midak,Ivan V. Kravets,Olga V. Kuzyshyn,Tetiana V. Kostiuk,Khrystyna V. Buzhdyhan,Victor M. Lutsyshyn,Ivanna O. Hladkoskok,Arnold E. Kiv,Mariya P. Shyshkina
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==Augmented reality while studying radiochemistry for the upcoming chemistry teachers==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2898/paper08.pdf
Augmented reality while studying radiochemistry for
the upcoming chemistry teachers
Liliia Ya. Midak1 , Ivan V. Kravets1 , Olga V. Kuzyshyn1 , Tetiana V. Kostiuk1 ,
Khrystyna V. Buzhdyhan1 , Victor M. Lutsyshyn1 , Ivanna O. Hladkoskok1 ,
Arnold E. Kiv2 and Mariya P. Shyshkina3
1
Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, 57 Shevchenko Str., Ivano-Frankivsk, 76000, Ukraine
2
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, Beer Sheva, 8410501, Israel
3
Institute of Information Technologies and Learning Tools of the NAES of Ukraine, 9 M. Berlynskoho Str., Kyiv, 04060,
Ukraine
Abstract
The objective of the research is developing a mobile application (on Android) designed to visualize the
basic definitions of the discipline “Radiochemistry and radioecology” in 3D. Studying the education
material of this discipline (phenomena of radionuclide, radioisotope, the nucleus, the fundamental
particle etc and their specifics) requires a more sophisticated explanation from the teacher and dynamic
dimensional image from the student. Decent detailed visualization of the study material makes this
process easier. So applying the augmented reality is rational for the purpose of visualizing the study
material, applying it allows demonstrate 3D-models of the nucleus, the fundamental particles, the nature
of radioactive decay, nuclear fission, the specifics of managing the nuclear weapon and the NPS. Involving
this instrument of the up-to-date information and communication technologies while studying the new
material gives the opportunity to develop and boost the spatial imagination of the students, “to see” the
invisible and to understand the received material in a better way, which improves its better memorizing.
As far as the augmented reality is one of the most recent new-age education trends, all the teachers are
required to have the ability to use it. In this reason the upcoming teachers, the students of the “General
Education (Chemistry)” specialty, must be trained with this technology. Within the study process the
students have the opportunity to review the positive moments of applying AR from a student’s stand of
point and to understand, how to apply similar education tools in the future pedagogic work.
Keywords
augmented reality technology, mobile learning, mobile application, chemistry education, radiochemistry
AREdu 2021: 4th International Workshop on Augmented Reality in Education, May 11, 2021, Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine
Envelope-Open lilia.midak@gmail.com (L. Ya. Midak); wanderkori@gmail.com (I. V. Kravets); olgaifua3108@gmail.com
(O. V. Kuzyshyn); kostyuk.tatyanaa@gmail.com (T. V. Kostiuk); khrystja.buzhdyhan@gmail.com (K. V. Buzhdyhan);
lucyshyn64@gmail.com (V. M. Lutsyshyn); gladkoskokivanka18.01@gmail.com (I. O. Hladkoskok);
kiv.arnold20@gmail.com (A. E. Kiv); shyshkina@iitlt.gov.ua (M. P. Shyshkina)
GLOBE https://chemeducation.pnu.edu.ua/5319-2/ (L. Ya. Midak); https://chemeducation.pnu.edu.ua/kuzyshyn/
(O. V. Kuzyshyn); https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/author/38339185000 (A. E. Kiv);
https://iitlt.gov.ua/eng/structure/departments/cloud/detail.php?ID=269 (M. P. Shyshkina)
Orcid 0000-0002-3213-5968 (L. Ya. Midak); 0000-0002-6737-6577 (O. V. Kuzyshyn); 0000-0002-0991-2343 (A. E. Kiv);
0000-0001-5569-2700 (M. P. Shyshkina)
© 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR
Workshop
Proceedings
http://ceur-ws.org
ISSN 1613-0073
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
147
1. Introduction
Comprehensive involvement of information and communication technologies (ICT) within the
study process and within managing the education system and the education establishments is
the main way to supply effectiveness of the education reform. Applying the ICT into the whole
education system will definitely expand the teachers’ possibilities, set-up the teacher-student
cooperation; build the students’ technical skills, which are so important for our century [1].
Reforming the education provides reinforcement of the students’ project, team and group
activities within the study process. With this being said, the scenarios of organizing the
education society will be diverse; the main focus will be on delivering mobile work places that
can be reset for group management purposes [2]. Planning and design of the education space
will target on the student’s development and motivation for study with the instrumentality of
ICT, multimedia devices, with upgrading the natural sciences laboratory [1].
Nowadays, children are getting used to availability of data wherever they are, 24 hours per
day, 7 days a week. They are also getting used to the Virtual Reality. That is why the so-called
SMART education, which requires the use of smartphones, tablets, interactive boards and other
devices with Internet access, is becoming more and more popular [1].
The integration of the study process with mobile devices and computers, uniting the real
objects with the virtual ones, supplying the necessary information about the studied objects,
including their 3D visualizing becomes possible with the augmented reality [3]. That is why,
the upcoming teachers, the students of the “General Education (Chemistry)” specialty, must be
trained with this technology. Within the study process the students have the opportunity to
review the positive moments of applying AR from a student’s stand of point and to understand,
how to apply similar education tools in the future pedagogic work.
The main features of the augmented reality are integration of both real and virtual objects in
the natural environment, real-time operation practice, and interactivity, equalizing the specifics
of real and virtual objects [4].
Per definition of Ronald T. Azuma, the Augmented Reality (AR) is one of the types of virtual
environment (or virtual reality), that augments the external reality, but does not totally change
it. Augmented Reality allows the user see the real world, when virtual objects are either laid
over the real world or consolidate with each other [5]. The Augmented Reality can potentially
be applied to all the receptors, including the sense of hearing, smell, somatic sense, but the most
common augmenter is the sense of sight.
The augmenters can help the human to focus on certain elements of the image from the
camera; increases understanding of the objects around by means of supplying the appropriate
information that is laid on the image with a text message or a visual image.
Within the education sphere augmented reality helps students discover the world, because
they can point the camera on the marker-image and get a lot more interesting information,
than the two-dimensional picture of the school book or text book [6]. This augmenter may
contain a 3D-model of the object, animation with some explanations of a certain mechanism or
phenomena, video manual about an experiment etc [7].
Chemistry is considered to be a complicated science, it operates with the ideas that cannot be
understood immediately and require specific images and associations in the students’ mind. The
controversy of the 2D images leads to the important ideas not received properly. The problems
148
of space visualization, which are easily resolved with tools like turning around the structure and
analyzing the symmetric characteristics, are almost non-resolvable with 2D even for competent
students. What even more, a lot of students are visuals [8]. This means, they can memorize an
object, they saw, in a better way, comparing with the one they imagine with a two-dimensional
picture, teacher’s lecture or the paragraph they read in the school-book.
The researches [9, 10, 11] analyze the effectiveness of using ICT while studying chemistry in
order to build the students’ basic qualities and, especially, with-in the research-based learning.
In this case, the augmented reality is the remedy, designed for supplying the correct study
material and its proper visualization [1]. With that being said [1], nowadays, there is only a
few Ukrainian mobile AR apps designed for studying chemical disciplines [12]. As far as the
augmented reality is one of the most recent new-age education trends, all the teachers are
required to have the ability to use it. This subject has become crucial nowadays, in the era of
distance education [13, 14, 15, 16, 17]. Transition of the education process to the distance ones,
when a part of the study material is memorized individually by students, makes applying ICT
extremely important both for the purpose of remote cooperation with the students, and for the
purpose of demonstrating the study data. The mixed reality in this case makes the irreplaceable
assistance for the teacher [18], as far as it allows the student receive the information whenever
they are, and at the same time, it does not require access to the computer.
Applying augmented reality while studying chemistry is described in numerous articles
[19, 20, 21, 22]. It is emphasized that involving 3D visualization gives the opportunity to
make the unseen by the human objects visible (an atom, molecule, chemical bonds etc.) and
understandable. This approach makes it easier to learn the structure of the atom, mechanisms
of chemical bonds etc. Cai et al. [19] have claimed the rationality of AR technology within
the process of lecturing chemistry for the purpose of developing the dimensional thinking
of students, their ability to imagine and manipulate three-dimensional molecular structures
using as an example the subject “The speciation and structure of substances”. On the other
hand, Cai et al. [19] note, that visualization of separate questions had a negative result on
understanding some of the text data by the pupils. Fjeld et al. [20] notes that the quality of
chemical 3D objects in AR has a positive effect on the motivation level of students and the
process of memorizing new knowledge. Núñez et al. [21] mark that providing AR-technology
increases the motivation for studying chemistry, develops understanding the crystal structure
of substances and improves the student’s skills of manipulating 2D and 3D patterns. Taçgin et al.
[22] states that AR-technologies are the most important technological tools designed for the
purpose of demonstration and studying the definitions like “an atom”, “a molecule”, “a chemical
bond” etc., which are invisible for the students.
The augmented reality gives the opportunity to visualize the object to the max (atoms and
molecules, their correlations, laboratory device setups, technology processing etc.), meaning to
convert the 2D images into 3D, and “make it alive” [23]. That is why it is a must to include the
digital acumen into the training of the upcoming chemistry teachers.
The objective of the research is developing a mobile application (on Android) designed to
visualize the basic definitions of the discipline “Radiochemistry and radioecology” in 3D; they
can be used by the teacher and the students in order to study the education material effectively.
149
2. Methods
As a result of the study, for the purpose of visualizing the study material, a free mobile application
“LiCo.Radiochemistry” was developed; it can be downloaded with the QR-code (figure 1).
Including the mobile application within the study process is designed to visualize the study
material, receive short information about the visualized objects (mini-outline), and to examine
the students’ knowledge by means of test control.
Figure 1: QR-code for downloading the mobile app LiCo.Radiochemistry.
3D models of the nucleus, fundamental parts (𝛼, 𝛽, 𝛾 rays), as well as animation designed to
explain the nature of nuclear reactions were developed for the mobile application.
Augmented reality markers were developed [24] on the platform Vuforia; 3D objects were
modeled [24] in the 3D Max, augmented reality objects were realized with the multiplatform
tool designed for developing 2D and 3D mobile applications Unity 3D [25] (figure 2). All of this
was designed to apply the AR technology.
3. Discussion and results
The developed mobile application contains the study material of the discipline “Radiochemistry
and radioecology”, learned by the students of the specialty “General Education (Chemistry)” of
Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University during the first year of study and is one of
the imperative disciplines. This discipline supplies the basics of ecologic competencies and the
key principles of the “green” chemistry.
Learning this subject requires introduction with phenomena of radionuclide, radio-isotope,
the nucleus, the fundamental particle etc. Most of these definitions are mostly imaginary
for the students and do not have a live visual recognition. Phenomena of nuclear fission and
radioactive decay are imaginary as well. While studying the subject “The chain nuclear reaction”
the mechanisms of nuclear weapon and the nuclear pile on the nuclear power stations (NPS)
are learned theoretically. In this way, studying the education material of this discipline (the
definitions, phenomena and their specifics) requires a more sophisticated explanation from the
teacher and dynamic dimensional image from the student. Decent detailed visualization of the
study material makes this process easier. Unfortunately, the 2D images of the contemporary
handbooks in this discipline do not provide the opportunity to visualize the study material in
good manner, as well as to supply the exact context of the definitions, demonstrate the reaction
mechanisms etc. That is why applying the augmented reality is rational for the purpose of
150
Figure 2: Setting up a 3D model of an atom nucleus in Unity 3D.
visualizing the study material, applying it allows demonstrate 3D models of the nucleus, the
fundamental particles, the nature of radioactive decay, nuclear fission, the specifics of managing
the nuclear weapon and the NPS. Involving this instrument of the up-to-date information and
communication technologies while studying the new material gives the opportunity to develop
and boost the spatial imagination of the students, “to see” the invisible and to understand
the received material in a better way, which improves its better memorizing. However, the
application includes study text content, suitable for memorizing by the modern age students.
Figure 3: Operation modes of the mobile application LiCo.Radiochemistry.
151
Figure 4: Image marker of the 𝛼-decay, viewed with the AR technology in the LiCo.Radiochemistry
mobile app.
Figure 5: Image marker of the 𝛽-decay, viewed with the AR technology in the LiCo.Radiochemistry
mobile app.
This ICT tool is also crucial in the remote study days, when the classic explanations of the
study info are replaced with on-line lectures and lack of straight communication with students
makes it impossible for the teacher to monitor the memorizing the study material.
The developed mobile application operates in three modes, which is its huge advantage:
studying the basics of radiochemistry with augmented reality, test control of the knowledge
and the vocabulary (figure 3).
The mobile application in AR operates the traditional model: select the image and identify it
is a marker → search for the image that goes along with the marker → apply the 3D model on
the marker-image → demonstrate it on the device screen.
While working with the augmented reality (AR) mode, the students can look into the external
view of the objects and receive short summary about them through a mini-outline. The markers
of the mobile app are presented in the figures 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Through these markers one can
receive information about:
• Types and mechanisms of nuclear decay (𝛼-decay, 𝛽-decay, 𝛾-rays);
• Specifics of radiation and its correlation with the substance;
152
Figure 6: Image marker of the 𝛾-decay, viewed with the AR technology in the LiCo.Radiochemistry
mobile app.
Figure 7: Image marker of the chain reaction path, viewed with the AR technology in the Li-Co.Radio-
chemistry mobile app.
• The nature of chain reaction;
• Principles of nuclear weapon deployment (out-of-control chain reaction);
• Principles of nuclear weapon deployment (controlled chain reaction).
If the smartphone or tablet with the mobile app is pointed on the marker, the image “becomes
alive”, the three-dimensional model appears on the screen figure 10, 11, 12, and the image can
be manipulated in certain ways (turn-around, zoom-in, view from different angles) in order to
better understand its structure, specifics, and for the animations – the nature of the reaction
paths.
Mode number two, the testing mode (figure 13, 14) gives students the opportunity to verify
their knowledge. The app has selected tests on the topic “Atomic nucleus. Radioactive decay and
nuclear transformation” (sub-topic “Radioactivity. Main types of radioactive transformations
and its characteristics”). The tests are classified by two complexity levels: two variants of
enclosed-type tasks with one correct answer were developed (10 questions per variant).
Mode number three, the vocabulary gives the opportunity to learn and revise the basics on
the topic “Atomic nucleus. Radioactive decay and nuclear transformations”.
153
Figure 8: Image marker of the nuclear weapon pattern, viewed with the AR technology in the LiCo.Ra-
diochemistry mobile app.
Figure 9: Image marker of the nuclear pile, viewed with the AR technology in the LiCo.Radiochemistry
mobile app.
This guidance paper was approved by Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University
while studying the disciplines “Radiochemistry and radioecology” and “The contemporary
technologies in chemistry” designed for students of the field of study “General Education
(Chemistry)”. Also, with the appropriate explanations the mobile app can be used by physics
teachers during their lessons in the 9𝑡ℎ grade of school while studying “Physics of the nucleus
and physics of the atom. The basics of nuclear energy in physics” and in the 11𝑡ℎ grade while
studying the subject “Atomic and nuclear physics”.
4. Conclusions
The mobile application (on Android) was developed for the purpose of visualizing the basics of
the course “Radiochemistry and radioecology”, it can be used by the teacher and the students in
order to understand the study material effectively.
The developed mobile app is a Ukrainian software product, which provides the study material
in two forms: graphics (providing the 3D models) and text. Compared to other mobile app,
the developed one has also the testing mode, designed to control the knowledge of students.
154
Figure 10: Simulation of the 𝛼-decay with the AR technology in the LiCo.Radiochemistry mobile app.
Figure 11: Simulation of the chain reaction path with the AR technology in the LiCo.Radiochemistry
mobile app.
Applying the augmented reality objects gives teacher the opportunity to explain the theory,
which cannot be illustrated with 2D images appropriately, and to review it live, and the students
perceive it effectively.
Studying the education material involving AR gives the upcoming teachers the ability not
only to perceive the information in good manner, as a student, but also build the skills to use it
155
Figure 12: Simulation of the nuclear pile model with the AR technology in the LiCo.Radiochemistry
mobile app.
Figure 13: Testing task in the testing mode of the developed mobile app.
Figure 14: Selecting the right answer in the testing mode of the developed mobile app.
in the future pedagogic work during chemistry lessons, get prepared to discover new education
technologies and learn throughout the lifetime.
156
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