Augmented scientific investigation: support the exploration of invisible "fine details" in science via augmented reality

Abstract

Augmented reality (AR) has great potential to radically change science education by making abstract science concepts visible and interactive. In this paper, we describe initial investigations into high school students' perceptions of learning science with an AR technology (i.e., SmartIR) through analyzing semi-structured interviews. SmartIR is an app that supports the investigation of science, such as thermodynamics. Specifically, it can show changes in thermal imaging over time and provides a data analytics function that visualizes data for analyzing and interpreting the changes. Our analysis of 31 interviews shows that students perceived the exploration of science phenomena with "fine details", including a full vision of second-by-second changes in thermal imaging, as helpful and engaging to understand science concepts. In future work, these findings will be triangulated with logging data of their interactions with SmartIR and student-generated lab reports.