A typical day in Semin Lee’s classroom looks quite different from that of the average chemistry class. Students aren’t examining models of molecules in a textbook – they’re holding molecules in their hands, expanding them to the size of a house, allowing them to walk inside and examine its components, all with the flick of a controller.
Lee, an assistant professor in LSU’s Department of Chemistry, uses virtual reality in his upper-level chemistry class to help students understand the structure of molecules.
“In organic chemistry, the three-dimensional structure of the molecule is very important,” Lee said. “[Students] seem to like it a lot – it’s a totally new experience. You look around, there’s a huge gigantic molecule over there and you have the freedom to bring it close to you, peek your head inside.”
Each of Lee’s PhD students in his CHEM 4561 class is given a VR headset to take home with them, allowing them to interact with molecules on their own time.
Students watch Lee’s virtual reality lectures in small groups. Lee teaches the material while he manipulates molecules, showing students what he’s talking about. Students can pause the lecture at any time and manipulate the molecules themselves, then hit play and continue where he left off.
“It’s easier to see the interactions between molecules if you’re able to touch and move them and put them together, like Legos,” said Victoria Rittell, a chemistry PhD student and one of Lee’s students.
Lee delivered lectures in VR when the university went online due to the pandemic, allowing for more of an in-person experience than Zoom was able to provide. Lee has been using VR at LSU since 2017, when he began teaching at the university.
In September 2020, Lee and his lab, the Lee Group, received a three-year research grant from the National Science foundation to explore better catalysts for alkyne metathesis and explore virtual reality teaching methods.
To arrange his VR simulations, Lee uses Nanome, a software originally used for drug research, allowing scientists to walk around inside molecules and see how drug molecules would bind to different proteins.
Lee first became interested in using VR for teaching purposes when he was completing a post-doctorate at the University of Illinois. He attended an outreach event that was using VR technology to get people interested in chemistry.
“The demo they did was quite astonishing,” Lee said. “They were able to walk inside proteins. Young children came along, you can crawl inside molecules and they seemed to have a lot of fun.”
Biochemistry senior and one of Lee’s students, Caleb Lee said that learning chemistry in VR provides all sorts of advantages, allowing students to see where and how different molecules can bind with other molecules.
“I think it’s a breakthrough because it’s fun and it helps people who just can’t visualize as well to visualize, and maybe they can use that to enhance their visualization outside of VR,” Caleb Lee said.
