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Recebido em 12/11/2005; Aceito em 28/4/2005Quantum mechanics is a non-intuitive subject. For example, the concept of orbital seems too dicult to bemastered by students who are starting to study it. Various investigations have been done on student’s dicul-ties in understanding basic quantum mechanics. Nevertheless, there are few attempts at probing how student’sunderstanding is inuenced by appropriate visualization techniques, which are known to help conceptual under-standing. “Virtual Water” is a 3-D virtual environment we have designed and built to support the learning ofPhysics and Chemistry at nal high school and rst-year university levels. It focuses on the microscopic structureof water and explores, among others, atomic and molecular orbitals. Having asked a group of rst-year studentsof Sciences and Engineering courses at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, to describe how they conceive elec-trons in atoms we found some common misconceptions. We have tried, with partial success, to overcome them bymaking students explore our virtual environment. The most relevant characteristics of the virtual environmentwhich contributed to student’s conceptual understanding were 3-D perception and navigation.Keywords: quantum mechanics, atomic orbitals, virtual reality, virtual environment, visualization, conceptualunderstanding.A mecˆanica quˆantica ´e uma teoria que escapa `a intui¸c˜ao. O conceito de orbital ´e um bom exemplo disso,sendo normalmente muito dif´icil de ser dominado pelos alunos que o abordam pela primeira vez. Foram j´arealizados v´arios estudos que incidem nas diculdades que os alunos tˆem na compreens˜ao da mecˆanica quˆanticaao n´ivel introdut´orio. Contudo, poucos trabalhos trataram a inuˆencia de t´ecnicas avan¸cadas de visualiza¸c˜ao,geralmente reconhecidas como bastante ´uteis, na compreens˜ao conceptual dos alunos. “Agua Virtual” ´´ eumambiente virtual 3-D que foi desenvolvemos com o prop´osito de apoiar o ensino e a aprendizagem de conceitosde F´isica e de Qu´imica a alunos dos anos terminais do ensino secund´ario e do primeiro ano da universidade. Oprograma centra-se na estrutura microsc´opica da ´agua e explora conceitos relacionados com orbitais at´omicas emoleculares. Utilizando aquele programa com uma amostra de alunos do primeiro ano dos cursos de Ciˆencias ede Engenharia da Universidade de Coimbra, em Portugal, detect´amos algumas concep¸c˜oes err´oneas dos alunossobre os electr˜oes nos ´atomos. Com a ajuda do programa “Agua Virtual” foi poss´´ ivel, com algum sucesso,ultrapassar algumas das diculdades encontradas. As caracter´isticas mais relevantes do ambiente virtual quecontribu´iram para tal foram a percep¸c˜ao 3-D e a navega¸c˜ao pelo ambiente.Palavras-chave: mecˆanica quˆantica, orbital at´omica, realidade virtual, ambiente virtual, visualiza¸c˜ao, com-preens˜ao conceptual.

Atomic orbitals and their representation: can 3-D computer graphics help conceptual understanding?